Quotes from Fulton J. Sheen

Lenin was probably a saint in reverse; if he had used his energy in violence toward self and the cultivation of love, instead of in violence toward others and the cultivation of hate, he could have become the Saint Francis of the nineteenth century.

Thus He did at a marriage feast what He would not do in a desert; He worked in the full gaze of men what He had refused to do before Satan. Satan asked Him to turn stones into bread in order that He might become an economic Messias; His mother asked Him to change water into wine that He might become a Savior.

It is not wisdom that saves; it is ignorance! There is no redemption for the fallen

The Scriptures are not merely a record of historical events that have passed. They constitute for every age a revelation of God's mind and will to each individual.

Why repentance? Because it is the first act of a soul which turns back to God, the first stroke that severs sin from the heart.

two world wars in twenty-one years, and the universal dread of nuclear incineration. This time God has given us John Paul II

We lose our souls not only by the evil we do but also by the good we leave undone.

The world is full of poetry; it is sin which turns it into prose.

How the modern world needs a Socrates, who used to walk into the market place of Athens asking people questions in order to make them discover themselves! True, he was put to death for unmasking others, but he left the world the heritage of "know thyself." Guide to Contentment, 80

The basis of all disappointment is the disproportion between what we imagine or wish for to make us happy and what we actually possess.

A character is made by the kind of thoughts a man thinks when alone, and a civilization is made by the kind of thoughts a man speaks to his neighbor. On

Mary!—we poor creatures of earth are stumbling over our freedoms, fumbling over our choices. Millions of us are seeking to give up their freedom—some by repudiating it, because of the burden of their guilt—some, by surrendering it to the moods and fashions of the time—others, by absorption into Communism, where there is only one will, which is the dictator's, and where the only love is hate and revolution!

The communion rail is a place of exchange. They give time and receive eternity, they give self-denial and receive love, they give nothingness, and receive all.

One reason for a long life is penance. Time is given us not just to accumulate that which we cannot take with us, but to make reparation for our sins.

we suffer from hunger of the spirit while much of the world is suffering from hunger of the body.

The hardest thing to find in the world today is an argument. Because so few are thinking, naturally there are found but few to argue. Prejudice there is in abundance and sentiment too, for these things are born of enthusiasms without the pain of labor. Thinking, on the contrary, is a difficult task; it is the hardest work a man can do — that is perhaps why so few indulge in it.

I want to be ignorant of everything in the world — everything but You, dear Jesus. And then, by the strangest of strange paradoxes, I shall be wise!

In the circuits of the planets there are times when the heavens are under the earth, and in the ways of God with men there was a time when Heaven was under the earth, and that was when Christ was born in the cave of Bethlehem.

Communism has chosen the Cross in the sense that it has brought back to an egotistic world a sense of discipline, self-abnegation, surrender, hard work, study, and dedication to supra-individual goals. But the Cross without Christ is sacrifice without love. Hence, Communism has produced a society that is authoritarian, cruel, oppressive of human freedom, filled with concentration camps, firing squads, and brain-washings.

Without Me you can do nothing"… nothing.

Goodness by its nature is lovable and love finds it impossible not to pursue goodness.

I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more.

One will never find a professor who denies freedom of the will who does not also have something in his life for which he wishes to shake off responsibility.

every sorrow is really the "Shade of His Hand outstretched caressingly