Frederick William Faber Quotes

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.

O Majesty unspeakable and dread!
Wert Thou less mighty than Thou art,
Thou wert, O Lord! too great for our belief,
Too little for our heart.

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

How are we to overcome temptations? Cheerfulness is the first thing, cheerfulness the second, and cheerfulness the third. The devil is chained. He can bark, but he cannot bite, unless we go up to him and let him do so.

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?

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

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?

No kind action ever stopped with itself. Fecundity belongs to it in its own right. One kind action leads to another. By one we commit ourselves to more than one. Our example is followed. The single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make fresh trees, and the rapidity of the growth is equal to its extent. But this fertility is not confined to ourselves, or to others who may be kind to the same person to whom we have been kind. It is chiefly to be found in the person himself whom we have benefited. This is the greatest work which kindness does to others,—that it makes them kind themselves.