Top 280 Quotes & Sayings by Fulton J. Sheen - Page 4

The way not to lead a monotonous life is to live for others.

All my sermons are prepared in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. As recreation is most pleasant and profitable in the sun, so homiletic creativity is best nourished before the Eucharist. The most brilliant ideas come from meeting God face to face. The Holy Spirit that presided at the Incarnation is the best atmosphere for illumination. Pope John Paul II keeps a small desk or writing pad near him whenever he is in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament; and I have done this all my life - I am sure for the same reason he does, because a lover always works better when the beloved is with him.

Whenever man attempts to do what he knows to be the Master's will, a power will be given him equal to the duty.

Why is it that any time we speak of temptation we always speak of temptation as something that inclines us to wrong. We have more temptations to become good than we do to become bad.

But there was no room at the inn"; the inn is the gathering place of public opinion; so often public opinion locks its doors to the King.

A woman never tells you why she loves; she just tells you how she loves.

The simple shepherds heard the voice of an angel and found their Lamb; the wise men saw the light of a star and found their Wisdom.

Grace does not work like a penny in a slot machine. Grace will move you only when you want it to move you, and only when you let it move you. The supernatural order supposes the freedom of the natural order, but it does not destroy it.

As long as the decent people refuse to believe that morality must manifest itself in every sphere of human activity, including the political, they will not meet the challenge of Marxism.

Satan stations more devils on monastery walls than in the dens of iniquity, for the latter offer no resistance.

It is the basic principle of Marxism that any attempt to reconcile capital and labor so that they both co-operate in peace and prosperity is a betrayal of communism.

Never will we be able to understand our times if we naively 'think' of this system of self Government as the work of a few gangsters or the creation of a pack of criminals we call a political party. The appeal of Socialism, Fascism and communism was principally negative; they were protests against a live and let live anything goes liberalism, a spineless indifference to causes, a failure to recognize that nothing was evil enough to hate, and nothing was good enough to die for.

Science is not wisdom.

Because God is full of life, I imagine each morning Almighty God says to the sun, "Do it again"; and every evening to the moon and the stars, "Do it again"; and every springtime to the daisies, "Do it again"; and every time a child is born into the world asking for curtain call, that the heart of the God might once more ring out in the heart of the babe.

A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the child's mind, he does not understand teaching.

Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double.

If we had intellectual vigour enough to ascend from effects to causes, we would explain political, economical and social phenomena less by credit sheets, balance of trade and reparations than by our attitude towards God.

Many married women who have deliberately spurned the "hour" of childbearing are unhappy and frustrated. They never discovered the joys of marriage because they refused to surrender to the obligation of their state. In saving themselves, they lost themselves!

Nature gives man corn but he must grind it; God gives man a will but he must make the right choices.

It is a long established principle of the Church never to completely drop from her public worship any ceremony, object or prayer which once occupied a place in that worship.

To love what is below the human is degradation; to love what is human for the sake of the human is mediocrity; to love the human for the sake of the Divine is enriching; to love the Divine for its own sake is sanctity.

Any book which inspires us to lead a better life is a good book.

Remember that every science is based upon an abstraction. An abstraction is taking a point of view or looking at things under a certain aspect or from a particular angle.

Man wants three things; life, knowledge, and love.

Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil... a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons... never to truth.

The egocentric is always frustrated, simply because the condition of self-perfection is self-surrender. There must be a willingness to die to the lower part of self, before there can be a birth to the nobler.

God could not keep, as it were, the secret of His love, and the telling of it was creation.

Communism is an aggressive religion of the species.

The modern man, finding that Humanism and Sex both fail to satisfy, seeks his happiness in Science ... But Science fails too, for it is something more than a knowledge of matter the soul craves.

To value only what can be "sold" is to defile what is truly precious. The innocent joy of childhood, the devotedness of a wife, the self sacrificing service of a daughter--none of these have an earthly market. To reduce everything to the dirty scales of economic values is to forget that some gifts, like Mary's, are so precious that the heart that offers them will be praised as long as time endures.

The mind has three operations: the formation of ideas, judgements and reasoning.

Head knowledge is worthless, unless accompanied by submission of the will and right action.

Do mathematics have a relation to reality or are they only a mathematical symbol?

Education lays hold of what is best in a person, but character lays hold of what is worse. It takes hold of a failing and by very skillful manipulation and training turns it into a perfection.

Man is incurably curious.

When our conscience bothers us, whether we admit it or not, we often try to justify it by correcting others, or by finding fault with them. The readiness to believe evil about others is in large part ammunition for a thousand scandals in our own hearts.

One function of the angels is illumination, and the other function is that of being a guardian.

Love burdens itself with the wants and woes and losses and even the wrongs of others.

The mark of the Christian is the willingness to look for the Divine in the flesh of a babe in a crib, the continuing Christ under the appearance of bread on an altar, and a meditation and a prayer on a string of beads

Confiscation in any form is an unhealthy solution for a real disease. It amounts to telling men that because they are economically crippled, they must abandon all efforts to get well and allow the state to provide them with free wheelchairs.

Everything that is full of life loves change, for the characteristic of life is movement toward a new goal and urges toward new pleasures

Possession properly has two faces, two aspects: we all have a right to private property, but this is accompanied by our responsibility for its righteous use. These two things (which should be inseparable) are frequently divided today. Everyone admits that the farmer who own a horse is obligated to feed and care for it, but in the case of stocks and bonds, we often forget that the same principle should prevail.

Facts themselves do not give knowledge

His words even imply that philanthropy has deeper depths than is generally realized. The great emotions of compassion and mercy are traced to Him; there is more to human deeds than the doers are aware. He identified every act of kindness as an expression of sympathy with Himself. All kindnesses are either done explicitly or implicitly in His name, or they are refused explicitly or implicitly in His name.

So the divine love is sacrificial love. Love does not mean to have and to own and to possess. It means to be had and to be owned and to be possessed. It is not a circle circumscribed by self, it is arms outstretched to embrace all humanity within its grasp.

Neither theological knowledge nor social action alone is enough to keep us in love with Christ unless both are proceeded by a personal encounter with Him. Theological insights are gained not only from between two covers of a book, but from two bent knees before an altar. The Holy Hour becomes like an oxygen tank to revive the breath of the Holy Spirit in the midst of the foul and fetid atmosphere of the world

The Rosary is the book of the blind.

Once you have surrendered yourself, you make yourself receptive. In receiving from God, you are perfected and completed.

If a man surrenders all power of self-determination in regard to the profits, management or ownership of the place where he works, he not only loses that special prerogative which marks him off from a cow in a pasture, but what is worse, he loses all capacity for determining any work. This is the beginning of a slavery which sometimes goes by the name of security.

Some will not look on suffering because it creates responsibility.

Monopolistic capitalism is to blame for this; it sunders the right to own property from responsibility that owning property involves. Those who own only a few stocks have no practical control of any industry. They vote by postcard proxy, but they have rarely even seen "their" company. The two elements which ought to be inextricably joined in any true conception of private property - ownership and responsibility - are separated. Those who own do not manage; those who manage; those who manage and work do not control or own.

Atheism, nine times out of ten, is born from the womb of a bad conscience. Disbelief is born of sin, not of reason.

If all things in this universe exist, it is because they participate in the Being of God, if there are some things with life, it is because they are reflections of the life of God; if there are beings endowed with intellect and will - like men and angels - it's because they are a participation of the Sovereign Intellect which is God.

...discussion is also a most excellent means to avoid -decision-

Obedience to Truth is obedience to Love.

There are no planes in the spiritual life; we are either going uphill or coming down.

Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive.

Men work harder and more readily when they labor on that which is their own.

Joy is the happiness of love - love aware of its own inner happiness. Pleasure comes from without, and joy comes from within, and it is, therefore, within reach of everyone in the world.

You have a chance to move in far better society than the Joneses. Why worry about keeping up with the Joneses? Keep up with the Angels and you'll be far wiser and happier.