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.

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

Tout le genre humain n’est qu’une famille dispersée sur la face de toute la terre. Tous les peuples sont frères, et doivent s’aimer comme tels.

The presence of God calms the soul, and gives it quiet and repose.

If we love Him infinitely more than we do ourselves, we make an unconditional sacrifice of ourselves to His good pleasure, desiring only to love Him and to forget ourselves. He who thus loses his soul shall find it again with eternal life.

The river of grace, it is true, is not dried up; but often, in order to water new lands, it diverts its course and leaves only dry sand in the old canal. Faith has not died out, I admit; but it is not bound to any of the places it illumines; it leaves behind it a frightful night for those who have scorned the day, and it carries rays of light to purer eyes.

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?

Above all, do not allow yourself to be bewitched by the evil charms of geometry.

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.

Sur-tout ne vous laissez point ensorceler par les attraits diaboliques de la géométrie.

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.

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.

Jesus Christ was born in a stable; He was obliged to fly into Egypt; thirty years of His life were spent in a workshop; He suffered hunger, thirst, and weariness; He was poor, despised, and miserable; He taught the doctrines of heaven, and no one would listen. The great and the wise persecuted and took Him, subjected Him to frightful torments, treated Him as a slave, and put Him to death between two malefactors, having preferred to give liberty to a robber, rather than to suffer Him to escape. Such was the life which our Lord chose; while we are horrified at any kind of humiliation, and cannot bear the slightest appearance of contempt.

If we love Him infinitely more than we do ourselves, we make an unconditional sacr

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.