Top 100 Francois Fenelon Quotes
#1. I would have no desire other than to accomplish thy will. Teach me to pray; pray thyself in me.
Francois Fenelon
#2. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#3. God would behold in you a simplicity which will contain so much the more of His wisdom as it contains less of your own.
Francois Fenelon
#5. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#7. Crosses are of no use to us but inasmuch as we yield ourselves up to them and forget ourselves.
Francois Fenelon
#8. Even if no command to pray had existed, our very weakness would have suggested it.
Francois Fenelon
#9. The greatest of all crosses is self. If we die in part every day, we shall have but little to do on the last. These little daily deaths will destroy the power of the final dying.
Francois Fenelon
#10. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#11. Most people I ask little from. I try to give them much, and expect nothing in return and I do very well in the bargain.
Francois Fenelon
#12. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#13. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#14. Of all the duties enjoined by Christianity none is more essential and yet more neglected than prayer.
Francois Fenelon
#15. The blood of a nation ought never to be shed except for its own preservation in the utmost extremity.
Francois Fenelon
#16. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#18. Peace does not dwell in outward things but within the soul; we may preserve it in the midst of the bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence to, not an exemption from, suffering.
Francois Fenelon
#19. Nothing is more false and more indiscreet than always to want to choose what mortifies us in everything. By this rule a person would soon ruin his health, his business, his reputation, his relations with his relatives and friends, in fact every good work which Providence gives him.
Francois Fenelon
#20. There is no real elevation of mind in a contempt of little things; it is, on the contrary, from too narrow views that we consider those things of little importance which have in fact such extensive consequences.
Francois Fenelon
#21. How can you expect God to speak in that gentle and inward voice which melts the soul, when you are making so much noise with your rapid reflections? Be silent and God will speak again.
Francois Fenelon
#22. Do we accustom ourselves to see all things in the light of faith? Do we correct all our judgments by it? Alas! The greater part of Christians think and act like mere heathens; if we judge (as we justly may) of their faith by their practice, we must conclude they have no faith at all.
Francois Fenelon
#23. No more restless uncertainties, no more anxious desires, no more impatience at the place we are in; for it is God who has placed us there, and who holds us in his arms. Can we be unsafe where he has placed us?
Francois Fenelon
#25. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#26. A general rule for the good use of time is to accustom oneself to live in a continual dependence on the Spirit of God.
Francois Fenelon
#27. Nothing is so costly as the pursuit of a cure for imaginary ills.
Francois Fenelon
#28. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#29. To will everything that God wills, and to will it always, in all circumstances and without reservations: that is the kingdom of God which is entirely within.
Francois Fenelon
#30. The realization of God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation.
Francois Fenelon
#31. There is nothing that is more dangerous to your own salvation, more unworthy of God and more harmful to your own happiness, than that you should be content to remain as you are.
Francois Fenelon
#32. We must truly serve those whom we appear to command; we must bear with their imperfections, correct them with gentleness and patience, and lead them in the way to heaven.
Francois Fenelon
#33. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#34. There were some who said that a man at the point of death was more free than all others, because death breaks every bond, and over the dead the united world has no power.
Francois Fenelon
#35. The presence of God calms the soul, and gives it quiet and repose.
Francois Fenelon
#36. A good historian is timeless; although he is a patriot, he will never flatter his country in any respect.
Francois Fenelon
#37. God, who is liberal in all his other gifts, shows us, by the wise economy of His providence, how circumspect we ought to be in the management of our time, for He never gives us two moments together.
Francois Fenelon
#38. How dangerous it is for our salvation, how unworthy of God and of ourselves, how pernicious even for the peace of our hearts, to want always to stay where we are! Our whole life was only given us to advance us by great strides toward our heavenly country.
Francois Fenelon
#39. Had we not faults of our own, we should take less pleasure in complaining of others.
Francois Fenelon
#40. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#42. It is when God appears to have abandoned us that we must abandon ourselves most wholly to God.
Francois Fenelon
#43. We are not to choose the manner in which our blessings shall be bestowed.
Francois Fenelon
#44. Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as by self-examination thoroughly to know our own.
Francois Fenelon
#45. There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us with God; we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid everything that tends to make us lose it.
Francois Fenelon
#46. Be content with doing calmly the little which depends upon yourself, and let all else be to you as if it were not.
Francois Fenelon
#47. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#48. I would have every minister of the gospel address his audience with the zeal of a friend, with the generous energy of a father, and with the exuberant affection of a mother.
Francois Fenelon
#50. We can often do more for other men by trying to correct our own faults than by trying to correct theirs ~ Francois Fenelon
Francois Fenelon
#51. Children are very nice observers, and they will often perceive our slightest defects. It general those who govern children forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves.
Francois Fenelon
#52. To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid "big" sins-is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?
Francois Fenelon
#54. Should we feel at times disheartened and discouraged, a simple movement of heart toward God will renew our powers. Whatever he may demand of us, he will give us at the moment the strength and courage that we need.
Francois Fenelon
#55. That love of self, which the world advocates, is a thousand times more dangerous than any poison.
Francois Fenelon
#56. Sordid and infamous sensuality, the most dreadful evil that issued from the box of Pandora, corrupts every heart, and eradicates every virtue. Fly! wherefore dost thou linger? Fly, cast not one look behind thee; nor let even thy thought return to the accursed evil for a moment.
Francois Fenelon
#57. True piety hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing constrained. It enlarges the heart; it is simple, free, and attractive.
Francois Fenelon
#58. How desirable is this simplicity! Who will give it to me? I will quit all else; it is the pearl of great price.
Francois Fenelon
#59. How different the peace of God from that of the world! It calms the passions, preserves the purity of the conscience, is inseparable from righteousness, unites us to God and strengthens us against temptations. The peace of the soul consists in an absolute resignation to the will of God.
Francois Fenelon
#60. Fear is like the strong medicine used to fight serious diseases; it purges, but it also alters your temperament and wears out the body organs. A person who is driven by fear will always be the weaker for it
Francois Fenelon
#61. Never let us be discouraged with ourselves. It is not when we are conscious of our faults that we are the most wicked; on the contrary, we are less so. We see by a brighter light; and let us remember for our consolation, that we never perceive our sins till we begin to cure them.
Francois Fenelon
#62. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#63. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#64. Exactness and neatness in moderation is a virtue, but carried to extremes narrows the mind.
Francois Fenelon
#65. To pray is to desire; but it is to desire what God would have us desire.
Francois Fenelon
#66. If we love Him infinitely more than we do ourselves, we make an unconditional sacr Here it is that the Spirit teaches us all truth; for all truth is eminently contained in this sacrifice of love, where the soul strips itself of every thing to present it to God.
Francois Fenelon
#67. To be faithful in prayer it is indispensable that we arrange all the activities of the day with a regularity that nothing can disturb
Francois Fenelon
#68. Oh! how seldom the soul is silent, in order that God may speak.
Francois Fenelon
#69. He who prays without confidence cannot hope that his prayers will be granted.
Francois Fenelon
#70. God has not chosen to save us without crosses; as He has not seen fit to create men at once in the full vigor of manhood, but has suffered them to grow up by degrees amid all the perils and weaknesses of youth.
Francois Fenelon
#71. All wars are civil wars because all men are brothers ... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born.
Francois Fenelon
#72. Frequently a big advantage can be gained by knowing how to give in at the right moment.
Francois Fenelon
#73. Let us pray God that He would root out of our hearts every thing of our own planting, and set out there, with His own hands, the tree of life, bearing all manner of fruits.
Francois Fenelon
#74. Speak, move, act in peace, as if you were in prayer. In truth, this is prayer.
Francois Fenelon
#75. Above all, live in the present moment and God will give you all the grace you need.
Francois Fenelon
#76. Before putting yourself in peril, it is necessary to forsee and fear it; but when one is there, nothing remains but to despise it.
Francois Fenelon
#77. The passion of acquiring riches in order to support a vain expense corrupts the purest souls.
Francois Fenelon
#78. When kings interfere in matters of religion, they enslave instead of protecting it.
Francois Fenelon
#79. The wind of God is always blowing ... but you must hoist your sail.
Francois Fenelon
#80. Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half.
Francois Fenelon
#81. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#82. You really don't even own the present moment, for even this belongs to God.
Francois Fenelon
#84. Accustom yourself gradually to carry Prayer into all your daily occupation - speak, act, work in peace, as if you were in prayer, as indeed you ought to be.
Francois Fenelon
#85. There is practically nothing that men do not prefer to God. A tiresome detail of business, an occupation utterly pernicious to health, the employment of time in ways one does not dare to mention. Anything rather than God.
Francois Fenelon
#86. How does our will become sanctified? By conforming itself unreservedly to that of God.
Francois Fenelon
#87. No human power can force the intrenchments of the human mind: compulsion never persuades; it only makes hypocrites.
Francois Fenelon
#88. The greater our dread of crosses, the more necessary they are for us.
Francois Fenelon
#89. If we had strength and faith enough to trust ourselves entirely to God; and follow Him simply wherever He should lead us, we should have no need of any great effort of mind to reach perfection.
Francois Fenelon
#90. Despondency is not a state of humility; on the contrary, it is the vexation and despair of a cowardly pride
nothing is worse; whether we fall, we must only think of rising again and going on course.
Francois Fenelon
#91. How rare it is to find a soul quiet enough to hear God speak.
Francois Fenelon
#92. Violent excitement exhausts the mind and leaves it withered and sterile.
Francois Fenelon
#93. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#94. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#95. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#96. God never ceases to speak to us, but the noise of the world without and the tumult of our passions within bewilder us and prevent us from listening to him
Francois Fenelon
#97. Worry is the cross which we make for ourselves by over anxiety.
Francois Fenelon
#98. 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.
Francois Fenelon
#99. Mankind, by the perverse depravity of their nature, esteem that which they have most desired as of no value the moment it is possessed, and torment themselves with fruitless wishes for that which is beyond their reach.
Francois Fenelon
#100. 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.
Francois Fenelon
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