Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes...reach the light of day?
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the moral consequences of our actions and the shame that may arise when truth and accountability come to light.
Hans Scholl's quote serves as a profound reminder of the implications of our choices, particularly those that may cause harm to others. It evokes the idea that ignorance and denial can shield us from the truth, but ultimately, the realities of our actions—the 'horrible crimes'—will inevitably be exposed, leading to a collective shame for ourselves and future generations if we fail to confront them.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of ethical responsibility in leadership.
Over the weekend the vultures got into the presidential palace by pecking through the screens on the balcony windows and the flapping of their wings stirred up the stagnant time inside, and at dawn on Monday the city awoke out of its lethargy of centuries with the warm, soft breeze of a great man dead and rotting grandeur.
What the universal Church holds, not as instituted [invented] by councils but as something always held, is most correctly believed to have been handed down by apostolic authority. Since others respond for children, so that the celebration of the sacrament may be complete for them, it is certainly availing to them for their consecration, because they themselves are not able to respond.
Immediately you will be perfect, you will become God.
...skepticism can never provide firm ground under a man's feet. And perhaps, after all, we need firm ground.
The mind we have when we practice zazen is the great mind: we don't try to see anything; we stop conceptual thinking; we stop emotional activity; we just sit. Whatever happens to us, we are not bothered. We just sit. It is like something happening in the great sky. Whatever kind of bird flies through it, the sky doesn't care. That is the mind transmitted from Buddha to us.
Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy or whatever, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine, with an expired Visa card, having tried to pay well over the odds to be peed upon by some Apache transvestite.
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