Frederick William Faber Quotes

Now we must remember, that if all the manifestly good men were on one side, and all the manifestly bad men on the other, there would be no danger of any one, least of all the elect, being deceived by lying wonders. It is the good men ,good once, we must hope good still, who are to do the work of the Antichrist, and so sadly to crucify afresh the Lord whom they … more than profess to love. Bear in mind this feature of the last days, that their deceitfulness arises from good men being on the wrong side.

O Paradise! O Paradise!
The world is growing old;
Who would not be at rest and free
Where love is never cold?

The very attempt to be like our dearest Lord is already a well-spring of sweetness within us, flowing with an easy grace over all who come within our reach.

Labour itself is but a sorrowful song,
The protest of the weak against the strong.

The habit of judging is so nearly incurable, and its cure is such an almost interminable process, that we must concentrate ourselves for a long while on keeping it in check; and this check is to be found in kind interpretations.… We must grow to something higher and something truer than a quickness in detecting evil.

Is the amount of scrupulous attention which I am paying to the government of my tongue at all proportioned to that tremendous truth revealed through St. James, that if I do not bridle my tongue, all my religion is vain?

Exactness in little duties is a wonderful source of cheerfulness.

Labor is sweet, for Thou hast toiled,
And care is light, for Thou hast cared;
Let not our works with self be soiled,
Nor in unsimple ways ensnared.
Through life's long day and death's dark night,
O gentle Jesus! be our light.

The buried talent is the sunken rock on which most lives strike and founder.

What another being is life when we have found out our Father; and if we work, it is beneath His eye, and if we play, it is in the light and encouragement of His smile. Earth's sunshine is heaven's radiance, and the stars of night as if the beginning of the Beatific Vision; so soft, so sweet, so gentle, so reposeful, so almost infinite have all things become, because we have found our Father in our God.

A spiritual life without a very large allowance of disquietude in it is no spiritual life at all. It is but a flattering superstition of self-love.

For right is right, since God is God;
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.

O Paradise! O Paradise!
Who doth not crave for rest?
Who would not seek the happy land,
Where they that love are blest?

This world is … only the porch of another and more magnificent temple of the Creator's majesty.

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or kind deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they imply also a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.