“About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday. For these days I also had their standing invitation to dinner. The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermons seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me as being particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared rather to be wordly-minded people, going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here, at times, I would involuntarily doze. I was ashamed, but some of my neighbours, who were in no better case, lightened the shame. I could not go on long like this, and soon gave up attending the service.”
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Probable attribution
This saying is widely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, but the attribution is not supported by a reliable primary source.
Likely origin: The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Autobiography) - the Wesleyan-church attendance passage.
About this quote
Showing up to a ritual out of habit while your mind wanders and nothing inside stirs is a kind of quiet dishonesty. Noticing that a practice has gone empty for you, and stepping away rather than performing a devotion you don't feel, is more truthful than staying on for appearances' sake.
When to use it
- A man who keeps attending a weekly club meeting out of habit, dozing through it, until he admits it no longer means anything and quietly stops.
- A family that drops a holiday tradition everyone secretly finds tedious rather than performing an enthusiasm they don't feel.
- An employee who stops nodding along in a meeting series he finds pointless and honestly asks to be excused from it.