Martin Sheen became more than just an actor. Become a conscience. From Badlands to Apocalypse Now to Gandhi to Wall Street to The West Wing. He has been in some of the most morally searching and emotionally demanding productions in the history of American film and television.
He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. It won an Emmy. He made war. He practiced politics. He did a quiet domestic drama. He played bosses, criminals, fathers, and soldiers with equal honesty and humanity. He has been one of the most respected and morally serious artists in his field for more than five decades. Through it all, he has come to a belief about what he is here to do that is as humble as it is profound.
Therefore, he once said: “In this world we are not asked to do great things, but rather we are asked to do all things with great love.”
Quote of the day by Martin Sheen
“In this world we are not asked to do great things, but rather we are asked to do all things with great love.”Martin Sheen delivered these words during his Laetare Medal acceptance speech at the University of Notre Dame on May 17, 2008. This was not a casual remark. This was not a spontaneous comment at a press event. The Order of Laetare is one of the most prominent honors bestowed upon American Catholics, and is awarded annually to an individual whose life reflects the ideals of faith in public service and human dignity.
Sheen stood before that audience not as a movie star accepting recognition, but as a man who had spent decades living out exactly the philosophy he was describing.
The full passage from which this line was drawn reads as follows:“Whether we admit it or not, we are all responsible for each other and for the world, and that is just the way it is, because we have consciously or unconsciously made it so. And while none of us has set any of the rules that govern the universe or the human heart, we are all beneficiaries of the divine promise, that the world is still a safe place despite our fears, and that while we are in it, we are not asked to do great things; we are asked to do all things with great love.”
“It is a passage of remarkable moral clarity. The closing line is her heart.
What does it actually mean?
Martin Sheen quietly deconstructs one of the most persistent and damaging myths about a meaningful life. The myth that importance requires size. That your life only matters if you do something big enough, visible enough, and historically important enough to be remembered.This myth causes tremendous harm. It makes ordinary people feel that their ordinary lives are not enough.
The love they give to their children, the care they show their neighbors, the small kindnesses they extend daily to the people immediately around them, none of it matters unless it adds up to something great. It creates paralysis in people who are waiting to do something great before they start doing something good.Sheen draws on a life of faith, activism, and artistic work, and cuts right through it.
You are not asked to do great things. Tape is not greatness. The bar is love. Do all things, whatever things are in front of you, with great love. That’s it. These are all instructions.This reformulation changes everything. Because love is not a quality reserved for grand gestures. It is available in every moment, in every interaction, no matter how small. The way you talk to someone who is suffering. The attention you bring to work will never be seen by anyone.
The patience you extend when you’re tired and don’t feel like it. The kindness you show when it costs you something. These are not small things that wear important clothes.
They are the very essence of a good life.Shane also says something very important before that closing line. He says that we are all responsible for each other and for the world. Not some of us. Not the powerful or prominent. Every one of us. He then links this responsibility not to achievement but to love.
The way we fulfill our responsibility to each other is not by doing great things. This is by doing all things with great love. The scope is global. The way is intimate.
Who is Martin Sheen?
Martin Sheen was born Ramon Antonio Gerard Estevez on August 3, 1940, in Dayton, Ohio, to a Spanish immigrant father and an Irish mother, according to IMDb. He grew up in a large, working-class Catholic family and found his way into acting through sheer determination, moving to New York as a teenager with next to nothing and building his craft through theater and early television work.His breakthrough came with his breakthrough performance in the 1973 film Badlands, which announced him as one of the most courageous and committed actors of his generation. He followed it up with what many consider one of the greatest performances in cinema history, playing Captain Willard in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, a role that nearly cost him his life during an extremely stressful production.His career spanned an extraordinary scope. He appeared in films such as “Gandhi,” “Wall Street,” “JFK,” and “The Departed.” But it was his portrayal of President Josiah Bartlet on the television series The West Wing, which ran for seven seasons, that brought him to the largest audience of his career and earned him Emmy and Golden Globe fame.