The angels surround and help the priest when he is celebrating Mass.
Saint AugustineRead
What is reprehensible is that while leading good lives themselves and abhorring those of wicked men, some, fearing to offend, shut their eyes to evil deeds instead of condemning them and pointing out their malice.
Interpretation
What this quote means
It criticizes those who ignore evil actions due to fear of conflict.
Saint Augustine's quote emphasizes the moral responsibility of individuals to confront and condemn wickedness, even if such actions result in discomfort or conflict. It highlights a troubling tendency for some people to remain silent about wrongdoing due to the desire to maintain peace or to avoid offending others, suggesting that true virtue requires courage to address and expose malice in society.
Themes
MoralityEvilCourageCondemnationResponsibility
In practice
Example use cases
During a community meeting discussing a local issue, one could quote Augustine to encourage individuals to speak against systemic injustices.
More from Saint Augustine
All quotes βThere is no health in those who are displeased by an element in Your creation, just as there was none in me when I was displeased by many things You had made. Because my soul didn't dare to say that my God displeased me, it refused to attribute to You whatever was displeasing.
Saint AugustineRead
Bad times, hard times, this is what people keep saying; but let us live well, and times shall be good. We are the times: Such as we are, such are the times.
Saint AugustineRead
Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.
Saint AugustineRead
Whatever skills I have acquired, whatever gifts I have been given, I place them at Your service.
Saint AugustineRead
Everyone who observes himself doubting observes a truth, and about that which he observes he is certain; therefore he is certain about a truth. Everyone therefore who doubts whether truth exists has in himself a truth on which not to doubt.... Hence one who can doubt at all ought not to doubt the existence of truth.
Saint AugustineRead
Similar quotes
If every inhabitant of a liberal democracy believes in liberal democracy, then it doesn't matter what creed or colour they are.
Martin AmisRead
Yet I also suspected that what I was seeing was but a part of the truth and perhaps not even the most important part; beneath these faces, these clothes, accents, rudenesses, was power and sorrow, both unadmitted, unrealized, the power of inventors, the sorrow of the disconnected.
James A. BaldwinRead
The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place. When true silence falls we are left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness.
Harold PinterRead
As long as we think abstractly, as long as we find in patriotism and the exuberance of War our fulfillment, we will never understand those who do battle against us, or how we are perceived by them, or finally those who do battle for us and how we should respond to it all. We will never discover who we are. We will fail to confront the capacity we all have for violence.
Chris HedgesRead
Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.
Pierre-Joseph ProudhonRead
In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.
Alan WattsRead