François Fénelon Quotes

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.

Toutes les guerres sont civiles; car c'est toujours l'homme contre l'homme qui répand son propre sang, qui déchire ses propres entrailles.

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.

I protest that no one admires Cicero more than I do. He enriches all that he touches.

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.

The good historian is not for any time or any country: while he loves his fatherland, he never flatters it in anything.

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.

If there is any thing that can render the soul calm, dissipate its scruples, and dispel its fears, sweeten its sufferings by the anointing of love, impart strength to it in all its actions, and spread abroad the joy of the Holy Spirit in its countenance and words, it is a simple, free, and child-like repose in the arms of God.

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?

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.

In general, those who govern children forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves.

God never makes us sensible of our weakness except to give us of His strength.

Peace treaties signed by the vanquished are not freely signed. Men sign with a knife at their throat, they sign in spite of themselves, in order to avoid still greater losses; they sign as men surrender their purse when it is a case of your money or your life.

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.

Men are very much to be pitied in that they are to be governed by a king who is but a man like them; for it would require Gods to reform men. But kings are not less to be pitied, since being but men, that are weak and imperfect, they are to govern this innumerable multitude of corrupt and deceitful men.