road to Damascus

plural roads to Damascus

1. attributiveidiomaticoftenAn important point in someone's life where a great change, or reversal, of ideas or beliefs occurs.

   […] That was my Road to Damascus moment. They played one hit after another and this is the song I remember most clearly.

   2007 March 18, Will Hodgkinson, quoting Bryan Ferry, “Soundtrack of my life: Bryan Ferry”, in The Observer

   3 more examples

   Today we hear a lot about those who have had what's often called Road to Damascus experiences on every issue from guns and same-sex marriage to the sanctity-of-life and taxes.

   2007 March 5, Jim Brown, quoting Mike Huckabee, “Huckabee criticizes fellow GOP candidates over 'Damascus Road conversions'”, in One News Now, archived from the original on 08 Mar 2007

   The candidate is aggressively branding himself as Vernon 2.0, a kinder, gentler Vernon Jones, a bridge builder, a fence mender. Asked by a Rockdale editor about his “road to Damascus moment,” Jones laughs. “I got knocked off my donkey,” he says.

   2010 February 14, Vernon Jones, quotee, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

   One of his biographers, the journalist Paul Vallely, suggested that, in reflecting during this period of exile on his own record under the junta, Francis experienced a road to Damascus moment, and thereafter became a more radical, fearless and outspoken priest. As pope he said on more than one occasion, “the truth is that I’m a sinner” and that as provincial he had had to learn from “my errors along the way”

   2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian