Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?
Fulton J. SheenRead
The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Indecision on moral issues equates to supporting evil, reflecting a crisis of conviction in honesty versus dishonesty.
Fulton J. Sheen's quote highlights the moral obligation individuals have to take a stand on significant issues. It suggests that failing to do so is, in itself, a choice that tacitly supports evil. The quote further contrasts the passionate beliefs of those who embrace dishonesty with the often lukewarm commitment of those who value honesty, illustrating a troubling imbalance in conviction in contemporary society.
Themes
MoralityConvictionHonestyEvilIndecision
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a debate about the importance of taking stands on social justice issues.
More from Fulton J. Sheen
All quotes →A woman gets angry when a man denies his faults, because she knew them all along. His lying mocks her affection; it is the deceit that angers her more than the faults.
Fulton J. SheenRead
Many married women who have deliberately spurned the "hour" of childbearing are unhappy and frustrated. They never discovered the joys of marriage because they refused to surrender to the obligation of their state. In saving themselves, they lost themselves!
Fulton J. SheenRead
No one has ever laughed at a pun who did not see in the one word a twofold meaning. To materialists this world is opaque like a curtain; nothing can be seen through it. A mountain is just a mountain, a sunset just a sunset; but to poets, artists, and saints, the world is transparent like a window pane - it tells of something beyond....a mountain tells of the Power of God, the sunset of His Beauty, and the snowflake of His Purity.
Fulton J. SheenRead
The big print giveth, and the fine print taketh away.
Fulton J. SheenRead
Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.
Fulton J. SheenRead
Similar quotes
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
Oscar WildeRead
I've always liked the idea of making things that last forever, not necessarily in the sense of being unbreakable, but more psychologically permanent. Most people throw stuff away not because it's broken but because their relationship with that object is broken.
Marcel WandersRead
I first started asking big questions when I was 12, and by big questions, I mean, 'Why are we here? What is this business? We're alive for a few short decades and then poof, we're out of here.'
Barbara EhrenreichRead
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals.
George OrwellRead
A man's liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefited.
Herbert SpencerRead
Solemnity is proper in church, but things that are proper in church are not necessarily proper outside, and vice versa. For example, I can say a prayer while washing my teeth, but that does not mean I should wash my teeth in church.
C. S. LewisRead