Fulton J. Sheen quotes
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Moral principles do not depend on a majority vote. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right is right, even if nobody is right.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
A Catholic may sin and sin as badly as anyone else, but no genuine Catholic ever denies he is a sinner. A Catholic wants his sins forgiven - not excused or sublimated.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying that the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Modern prophets say that our economics have failed us. No! It is not our economics which have failed; it is man who has failed-man who has forgotten God. Hence no manner of economic or political readjustment can possibly save our civilization; we can be saved only by a renovation of the inner man, only by a purging of our hearts and souls; for only by seeking first the Kingdom of God and His Justice will all these other things be added unto us.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Ever since the days of Adam, man has been hiding from God and saying, 'God is hard to find.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Most of us love a non-self, or something extrinsic and apart from our inner life; but a mother's love during the time she is a flesh-and-blood ciborium is not for a non-self but for one that is her very self, a perfect example of charity and love which hardly perceives a separation. Motherhood then becomes a kind of priesthood. She brings God to man by preparing the flesh in which the soul will be implanted; she brings man to God in offering the child back again to the Creator.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
I feel it is time that I also pay tribute to my four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Advertising tries to stimulate our sensuous desires, converting luxuries into necessities, but it only intensifies man's inner misery. The business world is bent on creating hungers which its wares never satisfy, and thus it adds to the frustrations and broken minds of our times.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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When I stand up to talk, people listen to me; they will follow what I have to say. Is it any power of mine? Of course not. St. Paul says, 'What have you that you have not received and you who have received, why do you glory as if you had not?' But the secret of my power is that I have never in fifty-five years missed spending an hour in the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That's where the power comes from. That's where sermons are born. That's where every good thought is conceived.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
There are angels near you to guide you and protect you, if you would but invoke them. It is not later than we think, it is a bigger world than we think.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Prayer begins by talking to God, but it ends by listening to Him. In the face of Absolute Truth, silence is the soul's language.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Truth must be sought at all costs, but separate isolated truths will not do. Truth is like life; it has to be taken on its entirety or not at all. . . . We must welcome truth even if it reproaches and inconveniences us -- even if it appears in the place where we thought it could not be found.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Never forget that there are only two philosophies to rule your life: the one of the cross, which starts with the fast and ends with the feast. The other of Satan, which starts with the feast and ends with the headache.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself. You have a duty to worship God, not because He will be imperfect and unhappy if you do not, but because you will be imperfect and unhappy.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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The humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a Babe, are therefore the only ones who will ever understand the reason of His visitation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to say to us, as only the Good God could say: 'you give me your humanity, and I will give you my Divinity; you give me your time, and I will give you My eternity; you give me your broken heart, and I will give you Love; you give me your nothingness, and I will give you My all.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
If the bringing of children into the world is today an economic burden, it is because the social system is inadequate; and not because God’s law is wrong. Therefore the State should remove the causes of that burden. The human must not be limited and controlled to fit the economic, but the economic must be expanded to fit the human.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Facts themselves do not give knowledge
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Gaston Milhaud, like many of his contemporaries, sought to overthrow empirical positivism by insisting on the fundamental reality of the mind, but mind conceived in the Kantian sense. The knowledge of nature is symbolic, and there is no necessary connection between the phenomena and our fictions.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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The proud man counts his newspaper clippings, the humble man his blessings.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Believe the incredible and you can do the impossible.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Books are the most wonderful friends in the world. When you meet them and pick them up, they are always ready to give you a few ideas. When you put them down, they never get mad; when you take them up again, they seem to enrich you all the more.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Charity is to be measured, not by what one has given away, but by what one has left.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
There is a tendency among many shallow thinkers of our day to teach that every human act is a reflex, over which we do not exercise human control. They would rate a generous deed as no more praiseworthy than a wink, a crime as no more voluntary than a sneeze. . . Such a philosophy undercuts all human dignity. . . All of us have the power of choice in action at every moment of our lives.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Our Lord did not ask us to give up the things of earth, but to exchange them for better things.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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In every friendship hearts grow and entwine themselves together, so that the two hearts seem to make only one heart with only a common thought. That is why separation is so painful; it is not so much two hearts separating, but one being torn asunder.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
There are ultimately only two possible adjustments to life; one is to suit our lives to principles; the other is to suit principles to our lives. If we do not live as we think, we soon begin to think as we live. The method of adjusting moral principles to the way men live is just a perversion of the order of things.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
There are two ways of waking up in the morning. One is to say, 'Good morning, God,' and the other is to say, 'Good God, morning'!
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The fact the enemies of God must face is that modern civilization has conquered the world, but in doing so has lost its soul. And in losing its soul it will lose the very world it gained. Even our own so-called Liberal culture in these United States which has tried to avoid complete secularization by leaving little zones of individual freedom is in danger of forgetting that these zones were preserved only because religion was in their soul. And as religion fades so will freedom, for only where the spirit of God is, is there liberty.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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The old liberal rebelled against taxation without responsibility, the new liberal wants the taxation as a handout without responsibility.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The world would hate His followers, not because of evil in their lives, but precisely because of the absence of evil or rather their goodness. Goodness does not cause hatred, but it gives occasion for hatred to manifest itself. The holier and purer a life, the more it would attract malignity and hate. Mediocrity alone survives.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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When a child is given to his parents, a crown is made for that child in Heaven, and woe to the parents who raise a child without consciousness of that eternal crown!
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Love is the key to the mystery. Love by its very nature is not selfish, but generous. It seeks not its own, but the good of others. The measure of love is not the pleasure it gives-that is the way the world judges it-but the joy and peace it can purchase for others.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
In all human love it must be realized that every man promises a woman, and every woman promises a man that which only God alone can give, namely, perfect happiness. One of the reasons why so many marriages are shipwrecked is because as the young couple leave the altar, they fail to realize that human feelings tire and the enthusiasm of the honeymoon is not the same as the more solid happiness of enduring human love. One of the greatest trials of marriage is the absence of solitude. In the first moments of human love, one does not see the little hidden deformities which later on appear.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
If you do not live what you believe, you will end up believing what you live.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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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.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Life is like a cash register, in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
If we wish to have the light, we must keep the sun; if we wish to keep our forests we must keep our trees; if we wish to keep our perfumes, we must keep our flowers- and if we wish to keep our rights, then we must keep our God.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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You must remember to love people and use things, rather than to love things and use people.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The wicked fear the good, because the good are a constant reproach to their consciences. The ungodly like religion in the same way that they like lions, either dead or behind bars; they fear religion when it breaks loose and begins to challenge their consciences.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Nothing can do men of good will more harm than apparent compromises with parties that subscribe to antimoral and antidemocratic and anti-God forces. We must have the courage to detach our support from men who are doing evil. We must bear them no hatred, but we must break with them.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The world is rapidly being divided into two camps, the comradeship of anti-Christ and the brotherhood of Christ. The lines between these two are being drawn. How long the battle will be we know not whether swords will have to be unsheathed we know not whether blood will have to be shed we know not whether it will be an armed conflict we know not. But in a conflict between truth and darkness, truth cannot lose.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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....
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
By a beautiful paradox of Divine love, God makes His Cross the very means of our salvation and our life. We have slain Him; we have nailed Him there and crucified Him; but the Love in His eternal heart could not be extinguished. He willed to give us the very life we slew; to give us the very Food we destroyed; to nourish us with the very Bread we buried, and the very Blood we poured forth. He made our very crime into a happy fault; He turned a Crucifixion into a Redemption; a Consecration into a Communion; a death into Life Everlasting
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Unless there is a Good Friday in your life, there can be no Easter Sunday.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
There is no other subject on which the average mind is so much confused as the subject of tolerance and intolerance... Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Never measure your generosity by what you give, but rather by what you have left.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Each of us comes into life with fists closed, set for aggressiveness and acquisition. But when we abandon life our hands are open; there is nothing on earth that we need, nothing the soul can take with it.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Each of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which he inhabits.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
A man without God is not like a cake without raisins; he is like a cake without the flour and milk; he lacks the essential ingredients.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The way not to lead a monotonous life is to live for others.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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The power of the rosary is beyond description.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Fasting detaches you from this world. Prayer reattaches you to the next world.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
As a man must be born before he can begin to lead his physical life, so he must be born to lead a Divine Life. That birth occurs in the Sacrament of Baptism. To survive, he must be nourished by Divine Life; that is done in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
We can think of Lent as a time to eradicate evil or cultivate virtue, a time to pull up weeds or to plant good seeds. Which is better is clear, for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Our happiest times are those in which we forget ourselves, usually in being kind to someone else. That tiny moment of self-abdication is an act of true humility: the man who loses himself finds himself and finds his happiness.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved; there can be no world peace without soul peace.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Baloney is flattery laid on so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we love it.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The danger today is in believing there are no sick people, there is only a sick society.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Whenever man attempts to do what he knows to be the Master's will, a power will be given him equal to the duty.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Communism is the final logic of the dehumanization of man.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Once you have surrendered yourself, you make yourself receptive. In receiving from God, you are perfected and completed.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Far better it is for you to say: "I am a sinner," than to say: "I have no need of religion." The empty can be filled, but the self-intoxicated have no room for God.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Pride is an admission of weakness; it secretly fears all competition and dreads all rivals.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive. They are too often praised for being broadminded when they are so broadminded they can never make up their minds about anything.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Man wants three things; life, knowledge, and love.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Hearing nuns' confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is "timing" it waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Today (1950), the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming hatred against Christianity itself. Although the statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian, and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world Power.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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Love burdens itself with the wants and woes and losses and even the wrongs of others.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The difference between the love of a man and the love of a woman is that a man will always give reasons for loving, but a woman gives no reasons for loving.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
We are all born with the power of speech, but we need grammar. Conscience, too, needs Revelation.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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The mark of man is initiative, but the mark of woman is cooperation. Man talks about freedom; woman about sympathy, love, sacrifice. Man cooperates with nature; woman cooperates with God. Man was called to till the earth, to "rule over the earth"; woman to be the bearer of a life that comes from God.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Science is not wisdom.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
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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!
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
The mind has three operations: the formation of ideas, judgements and reasoning.
-- Fulton J. Sheen -
Wars come from egotism and selfishness. Every macrocosmic or world war has its origin in microcosmic wars going on inside millions and millions of individuals.
-- Fulton J. Sheen
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