Francois Fenelon Quotes

Little opportunities should be improved.

God is so good that He only awaits our desire to overwhelm us with the gift of himself.

The smallest things become great when God requires them of us; they are small only in themselves; they are always great when they are done for God.

We are never less alone than when we are in the society of a single, faithful friend; never less deserted than when we are carried in tne arms of the All-Powerful.

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.

Make this simple rule the guide of your life: to have no will but God's.

Frequently a big advantage can be gained by knowing how to give in at the right moment.

There is no more dangerous illusion than the fancies by which people try to avoid illusion.

The greater our dread of crosses, the more necessary they are for us.

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.

Be content with doing calmly the little which depends upon yourself, and let all else be to you as if it were not.

Blessed are the poor in spirit." Blessed are they who are stripped of every thing, even of their own wills, that they may no longer belong to themselves.

We are not to choose the manner in which our blessings shall be bestowed.

Simplicity is that grace which frees the soul from all unnecessary reflections upon itself.

Children are excellent observers, and will often perceive your slightest defects. In general, those who govern children, forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves

To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid “big” sins-is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?

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.

The gifts of God are not to be rejected on account of the channel that brings them.

We may as well tolerate all religions, since God Himself tolerates all.

Real friends are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. It were almost to be wished that all true and faithful friends should expire on the same day.

To pray is to desire; but it is to desire what God would have us desire.

How desirable is this simplicity! Who will give it to me? I will quit all else; it is the pearl of great price.

God would behold in you a simplicity which will contain so much the more of His wisdom as it contains less of your own.

Were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be.

Let us often think of our own infirmities, and we shall become indulgent toward those of others.

The past but lives in written words: a thousand ages were blank if books had not evoked their ghosts, and kept the pale unbodied shades to warn us from fleshless lips.

I no longer desire anything but to be Thine.

Time is given us that we may take care for eternity; and eternity will not be too long to regret the loss of our time if we have misspent it.

Oh! how seldom the soul is silent, in order that God may speak.

Speak, move, act in peace, as if you were in prayer. In truth, this is prayer.

Those who are wholly God's are always happy.

O Lord, I do most cheerfully commit all unto Thee.

The greatest defect of common education is, that we are in the habit of putting pleasure all on one side, and weariness on the other; all weariness in study, all pleasure in idleness.

Prayer is so necessary, and the source of so many blessings, that he who has discovered the treasure cannot be prevented from having recourse to it, whenever he has an opportunity.

It is when God appears to have abandoned us that we must abandon ourselves most wholly to God.

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.

Speak, move, act in peace.

This poor world, the object of so much insane attachment, we are about to leave; it is but misery, vanity, and folly; a phantom--the very fashion of which "passeth away.

O Lord! take my heart, for I cannot give it; and when Thou hast it, O! keep it, for I cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of myself, for Jesus Christ's sake.

You really don't even own the present moment, for even this belongs to God.

True piety hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing constrained. It enlarges the heart; it is simple, free, and attractive.

All wars are civil ones; for it is still man spilling his own blood, tearing out his own bowels.

Nothing is so costly as the pursuit of a cure for imaginary ills.

As long as anything in this world means anything to you, your freedom is only a word. You are like a bird that is held by a leash; you can only fly so far.

It is better to die than to tell a lie

The most essential point is lowliness.

Good taste rejects excessive nicety.

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.

The blood of a nation ought never to be shed except for its own preservation in the utmost extremity.

Even if no command to pray had existed, our very weakness would have suggested it.