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
Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive. They are too often praised for being broadminded when they are so broadminded they can never make up their minds about anything.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques those who receive praise for indecisiveness and passivity under the guise of open-mindedness.
Fulton J. Sheen's quote highlights a common flaw in human behavior where individuals are mistakenly celebrated for their passivity and indecisiveness. It suggests that true virtue and strength of character lie not in being overly accommodating or non-committal, but in having the courage to form and express one’s own opinions and make decisive choices, rather than succumbing to a superficial 'broad-mindedness'.
Themes
PassivityIndecisionOpen-MindednessVirtueCharacterCourage
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about the importance of decision-making.
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.
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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!
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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
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