His change of heart was a real road to Damascus moment.
road to Damascus
idiomAn important point in someone's life where a great change, or reversal, of ideas or beliefs occurs.
Origin
The phrase comes from Acts 9:1-19. Saul of Tarsus, a zealous persecutor of the early Christians, is travelling to Damascus to arrest more of them when a blinding light stops him on the road and a voice asks why he is persecuting it. Struck sightless, he is led into the city, and days later his sight and his allegiance are both restored. The persecutor becomes Paul, the movement's most tireless advocate. The reversal could hardly be sharper: a man sets out to destroy a cause and arrives converted to it.
What English took from the story is the suddenness and completeness of the turnaround, a change of conviction so total it amounts to becoming a different person.
A road-to-Damascus moment now means a sudden, dramatic conversion or reversal of belief, a point at which someone abruptly comes to see things the opposite way. It need not be religious; it applies to any abrupt, wholesale change of mind.
After years of ignoring environmental issues, her trip to the rainforest was a road to Damascus that changed her career path.
The philosopher described his sudden rejection of his earlier theories as a road to Damascus, marking a complete transformation in his intellectual life.
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bump in the road
A setback or obstacle, especially one which is relatively minor.
- 02
down the road, not across the street
Of the technique for committing suicide, along the radial artery rather than across the wrist from side to side.
- 03
frog
[Cockney slang]road
- 04
get the show on the road
To begin or launch; to get going.
- 05
go down that road
To settle a way of doing something; do decide to do something in a particular way.
- 06
go down the road
To employ a way of doing something; to do something in a particular way.
- 07
high road
A course of action which is dignified, honourable, or respectable.
- 08
hit the road
To begin traveling in an automobile or other road vehicle.
Acts and the letters of Paul to the first churches.
- 01
reap what you sow (idiom)
Your actions produce their own inevitable consequences, good or bad.
- 02
the root of all evil (idiom)
The underlying source of much wrongdoing — most often applied to money.
- 03
fight the good fight (idiom)
To persevere with determination in a worthy and difficult struggle.
- 04
a thorn in the side (idiom)
A persistent source of irritation, trouble, or difficulty.
- 05
the wages of sin (idiom)
The inevitable painful consequences of wrongdoing.
- 06
in the twinkling of an eye (idiom)
In an instant; extremely quickly.