Fulton J. Sheen Quotes

Charity is to be measured, not by what one has given away, but by what one has left.

The very freedom which the sinner supposedly exercises in his self-indulgence is only another proof that he is ruled by the tyrant.

A man may stand for the justice of God, but a woman stands for His Mercy.

The basic struggle today is not between individualism and collectivism, free enterprise and socialism, democracy and dictatorship. These are only the superficial manifestations of a deeper struggle which is moral and spiritual and involves above all else whether man shall exist for the state, or the state for man, and whether freedom is of the spirit or a concession of a materialized society.

Each of us makes his own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which he inhabits.

The pacifist thinks that the alternative to war is peace; it is not. Sometimes the alternative is oppression. Sometimes certain God-given rights and liberties can be preserved only by resistance to that which would destroy them. And to defend certain basic God-given rights and liberties is not immoral but righteous.

There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.

If we had intellectual vigour enough to ascend from effects to causes, we would explain political, economical and social phenomena less by credit sheets, balance of trade and reparations than by our attitude towards God.

If we wish to have the light, we must keep the sun; if we wish to keep our forests we must keep our trees; if we wish to keep our perfumes, we must keep our flowers- and if we wish to keep our rights, then we must keep our God.

The humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a Babe, are therefore the only ones who will ever understand the reason of His visitation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to say to us, as only the Good God could say: 'you give me your humanity, and I will give you my Divinity; you give me your time, and I will give you My eternity; you give me your broken heart, and I will give you Love; you give me your nothingness, and I will give you My all.

The mind has three operations: the formation of ideas, judgements and reasoning.

Communism is an aggressive religion of the species.

The power of the rosary is beyond description.

Humility is dependence on God as pride is independence of Him. The humble soul is always the thankful soul.

The proud man counts his newspaper clippings, the humble man his blessings.

Confiscation in any form is an unhealthy solution for a real disease. It amounts to telling men that because they are economically crippled, they must abandon all efforts to get well and allow the state to provide them with free wheelchairs.

The Western world generally has lost the concept of man as a creature made to the image and likeness of God, and reduced him either to a component part of the universe, to an economic animal or to a "physiological bag filled with psychological libido." Once man became materialized and atomized in Western thinking, it was only natural for a totalitarianism to arise to gather up the fragments into a new totality and substitute the collective man for the individual man who was isolated from all social responsibilities.

Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double.

There is no word more "dangerous" than liberalism, because to oppose it is the new "unforgivable sin."

It is the basic principle of Marxism that any attempt to reconcile capital and labor so that they both co-operate in peace and prosperity is a betrayal of communism.

It's impossible to lose your footing when you're on your knees.

The slave states of Western world are an outgrowth of monopolistic capitalism - an economic system which is opposed to the wide distribution of private property in many hands. Instead, monopolistic capitalism concentrates productive wealth among a few men, allowing the rest to become a vast proletariat.

Burning the candle at both ends for God's sake may be foolishness to the world, but it is a profitable Christian exercise-for so much better the light. Only one thing in life matters. Being found worthy of the Light of the World in the hour of His visitation. We need have no undue fear for our health if we work hard for the kingdom of God; God will take care of our health if we take care of His cause. In any case it is better to burn out than to rust out.

A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the child's mind, he does not understand teaching.

Love burdens itself with the wants and woes and losses and even the wrongs of others.

I wonder maybe if our Lord does not suffer more from our indifference, than He did from the crucifixion.

In all human love it must be realized that every man promises a woman, and every woman promises a man that which only God alone can give, namely, perfect happiness. One of the reasons why so many marriages are shipwrecked is because as the young couple leave the altar, they fail to realize that human feelings tire and the enthusiasm of the honeymoon is not the same as the more solid happiness of enduring human love. One of the greatest trials of marriage is the absence of solitude. In the first moments of human love, one does not see the little hidden deformities which later on appear.

All our anxieties relate to time.

Souls generally do not fall away from Christ because of the Creed; they first have difficulty with the Commandments.

Most of us do not like to look inside ourselves for the same reason we don't like to open a letter that has bad news.

When I stand up to talk, people listen to me; they will follow what I have to say. Is it any power of mine? Of course not. St. Paul says, 'What have you that you have not received and you who have received, why do you glory as if you had not?' But the secret of my power is that I have never in fifty-five years missed spending an hour in the presence of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That's where the power comes from. That's where sermons are born. That's where every good thought is conceived.

Nothing is more destined to create deep-seated anxieties in people than the false assumption that life should be free from anxieties.

The reason we're bored is because we don't love anything.

America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance - it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.

The mark of man is initiative, but the mark of woman is cooperation. Man talks about freedom; woman about sympathy, love, sacrifice. Man cooperates with nature; woman cooperates with God. Man was called to till the earth, to "rule over the earth"; woman to be the bearer of a life that comes from God.

Truth must be sought at all costs, but separate isolated truths will not do. Truth is like life; it has to be taken on its entirety or not at all. . . . We must welcome truth even if it reproaches and inconveniences us -- even if it appears in the place where we thought it could not be found.

Baloney is flattery laid on so thick it cannot be true, and blarney is flattery so thin we love it.

Science is not wisdom.

Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive.

The nearer Christ comes to a heart, the more it becomes conscious of its guilt; it will then either ask for his mercy and find peace, or else it will turn against Him because it is not yet ready to give up its sinfulness. Thus He will separate the good from the bad, the wheat from the chaff. Man's reaction to this Divine Presence will be the test: either it will call out all the opposition of egotistic natures, or else galvanize them into a regeneration and a resurrection.

Health, power, riches, possessions and honor can be snatched from you, but your will is irrevocably your own.

The science of a religious man must be scientific; the religion of a scientific man must be religious.

When our conscience bothers us, whether we admit it or not, we often try to justify it by correcting others, or by finding fault with them. The readiness to believe evil about others is in large part ammunition for a thousand scandals in our own hearts.

Prayer is helplessness casting itself on Power, infirmity leaning on Strength, misery reaching to Mercy, and a prisoner clamoring for Relief.

You must remember to love people and use things, rather than to love things and use people.

We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble.

Why is it that any time we speak of temptation we always speak of temptation as something that inclines us to wrong. We have more temptations to become good than we do to become bad.

Books are the most wonderful friends in the world. When you meet them and pick them up, they are always ready to give you a few ideas. When you put them down, they never get mad; when you take them up again, they seem to enrich you all the more.