Quotes from Fulton J. Sheen

The Divine Savior never said to His Apostles: "Be good and you will not suffer" but He did say: "In this world you shall have tribulation.

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.

A word of caution, then, is necessary when a statement is made by a scientist turned philosopher, just as a word of caution is necessary when a statement is made by a philosopher turned scientist, or an automobile manufacturer turned historian, or an oil man turned authority on church unity. This does not mean to imply that all the wrong is on the side of the scientists. Very often philosophers and theologians commit the same fallacy by passing premature judgments in the conclusions of science.

The shepherd who would give more abundant life to the lost sheep is bound to have wolves howling about him and thus to be led ultimately to his death. It was only the sight of the Shepherd crucified that made the sheep realize how much the Shepherd cared.

If we allow our mind to become fallow and do not pour truth into it by study, not only does ignorance possess it, but we actually reach a point where we can enjoy nothing but picture magazines and cheap novels.

Perhaps the solicitation to pamper the way men live is too strong for them, for much of the business of philosophy at the present time seems to be to give high-sounding names to cover the sins of men. The clay is now molding the potter and the marble carving out the sculptor.

The latter stage is apt to end in cynicism as we wonder what the one who praises really wants.

Woe to you that are filled: for you shall hunger";

The words of men pass away when they have been conceived and uttered, but the Word of God is eternally uttered and can never cease from utterance.

Everyone else who was ever born into the world, came into it to live; our Lord came into it to die.

The greatest inhumanity that can be ascribed to men is having an opportunity for doing good to others and doing nothing. The serious sin is not always one of commission, but omission.

Finite intelligence needs many words in order to express ideas; but God speaks once and for all within Himself—one single Word which reaches the abyss of all things that are known and can be known. In that Word of God are hidden all the treasures of wisdom, all the secrets of sciences, all the designs of the arts, all the knowledge of mankind. But this knowledge, compared to the Word, is only the feeblest broken syllable.

The most current philosophy of life is self-expressionism: "Let yourself go"; "Do whatever you please." Any suggestion of restraining errant impulses is called a masochistic survival of the dark ages. The truth is that the only really self-expressive people in the world are in the insane asylum. They have absolutely no inhibitions, no conventions, and no codes. They are as self-expressive as hell, i.e., in complete disorder.

the modern world has rejected for the last three hundred years (after believing in it for the first sixteen hundred years), namely, the virgin birth of Jesus from His Mother, Mary, who is a virgin.

Our hearts will be where our joys are.

They want a mission, a challenge! When we follow the type of advertising appeal used by Madison Avenue to sell toothpaste, when we use commercial techniques in our vocation literature, do not the hearts of the young spurn our distance from the Cross? Do not we recruit fruits of propaganda rather than fruits worthy of penance?

In His own case, now as always, the most sorrowful moods pass into the most blissful; there is never the Cross without the Resurrection; the 'Hour' in which evil has mastery passes quickly into the 'Day' where God is Victor.

For love concentrates on the object, sex concentrates on the subject.

But the Sacred Heart wishes great graces to be distributed to souls through the hands of His priests.

But He pointed to His torn and battered Self on a hill, and then added that only through the Cross in their lives will there ever be beauty of soul in the newness of life.

Character is to some extent judged by what a man does with his falls. A pig falls into the mud and stays there; a sheep falls in and climbs out.

The Christian law is that the higher we go, the lower we are to become. Our Blessed Lord said, "Let the greatest among you be as the least.

sex seeks the part; love the totality.

the very permanence of marriage is destructive of those fleeting infatuations, which are born with the moment and die with it; it destroys selfishness, furthermore, because the mutual love of husband and wife takes them out of themselves into the incarnation of their mutual love, their other selves, their children; and finally it narrows selfishness because the rearing of children demands sacrifice, without which, like unwatered flowers, they wilt and die.