François Fénelon quotes

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. (François Fénelon)
If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading I would spurn them all. View quote
François Fénelon
Nothing is more despicable than a professional talker who uses his words as a quack uses his remedies. View quote
François Fénelon
God never makes us sensible of our weakness except to give us of His strength. View quote
François Fénelon
Genuine good taste consists in saying much in few words, in choosing among our thoughts, in having order and arrangement in what we say, and in speaking with composure. View quote
François Fénelon
The presence of God calms the soul, and gives it quiet and repose. View quote
François Fénelon
Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half. View quote
François Fénelon
If we were faultless we should not be so much annoyed by the defects of those with whom we associate. View quote
François Fénelon
In the light of eternity we shall see that what we desired would have been fatal to us, and that what we would have avoided was essential to our well-being. View quote
François Fénelon
The more you say, the less people remember. View quote
François Fénelon
Commit yourself then to God! He will be your guide. He Himself will travel with you, as we are told He did with the Israelites, to bring them step by step across the desert to the promised land. Ah! what will be your blessedness, if you will but surrender yourself into the hands of God, permitting Him to do whatever He will, not according to your desires, but according to His own good pleasure? (François Fénelon)
Carefully purify your conscience from daily faults; suffer no sin to dwell in your heart; small as it may seem, it obscures the light of grace, weighs down the soul, and hinders that constant communion with Jesus Christ which it should be your pleasure to cultivate. View quote
François Fénelon
Pure love is in the will alone; it is no sentimental love, for the imagination has no part in it; it loves, if we may so express it, without feeling, as faith believes without seeing. View quote
François Fénelon
There is but one way in which God should be loved, and that is to take no step except with Him and for Him, and to follow with a generous self-abandonment every thing which He requires. View quote
François Fénelon
We may be sure that it is the love of God only that can make us come out of self. If His powerful hand did not sustain us, we should not know how to take the first step in that direction. View quote
François Fénelon
God's treasury where He keeps His children's gifts will be like many a mother's store of relics of her children, full of things of no value to others, but precious in His eyes for the love's sake that was in them. View quote
François Fénelon
When you come to be sensibly touched, the scales will fall from your eyes; and by the penetrating eyes of love you will discern that which your other eyes will never see. View quote
François Fénelon
O God, the creature knows not to what end Thou hast made Him; teach him, and write in the depths of his soul that the clay must suffer itself to be shaped at the will of the potter. View quote
François Fénelon
True love goes ever straight forward, not in its own strength, but esteeming itself as nothing. Then indeed we are truly happy. The cross is no longer a cross when there is no self to suffer under it. View quote
François Fénelon
The kingdom of God which is within us consists in our willing whatever God wills, always, in every thing, and without reservation; and thus His kingdom comes; for His will is then done as it is in heaven, since we will nothing but what is dictated by His sovereign pleasure. View quote
François Fénelon
Thou lovest like an infinite God when Thou lovest; Thou movest heaven and earth to save Thy loved ones. Thou becomest man, a babe, the vilest of men, covered with reproaches, dying with infamy and under the pangs of the cross; all this is not too much for an infinite love. (François Fénelon)
This is the love that does all things; that brings to pass even the evils we suffer; so shaping them that they are but instruments of preparing the good which, as yet, has not arrived. View quote
François Fénelon
All wars are civil ones; for it is still man spilling his own blood, tearing out his own bowels. View quote
François Fénelon
As a general rule, those truths which we highly relish, and which shed a degree of practical light upon the things which we are required to give up for God, are leadings of Divine grace, which we should follow without hesitation. View quote
François Fénelon
Let us endeavor to commence every enterprise with a pure view to the glory of God, continue it without distraction, and finish it without impatience. View quote
François Fénelon