Quotes from Fulton J. Sheen

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

Broken things are precious. We eat broken bread because we share in the depth of our Lord and His broken life. Broken flowers give perfume. Broken incense is used in adoration. A broken ship saved Paul and many other passengers on their way to Rome. Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them.

Head knowledge is worthless, unless accompanied by submission of the will and right action.

Wars come from egotism and selfishness. Every macrocosmic or world war has its origin in microcosmic wars going on inside millions and millions of individuals.

It is easier to write a book with footnotes than the same book written so that children can understand it.

The evil in the world must not make me doubt the existence of God. There could be no evil if there were no God. Before there can be a hole in a uniform, there must be a uniform; before there is death, there must be life; before there is error, there must be truth; before there is a crime, there must be liberty and law; before there is a war, there must be peace; before there is a devil, there must be a God, rebellion against whom made the devil.

You cannot always depend on prayers to be answered the way you want them answered but you can always depend on God. God, the loving Father often denies us those things which in the end would prove harmful to us. Every boy wants a revolver at age four, and no father yet has ever granted that request. Why should we think God is less wise? Someday we will thank God not only for what He gave us, but also for that which He refused.

Love is the key to the mystery. Love by its very nature is not selfish, but generous. It seeks not its own, but the good of others. The measure of love is not the pleasure it gives-that is the way the world judges it-but the joy and peace it can purchase for others.

When you think of the condition the world is in now you sometimes wish that Noah had missed the boat.

When the will loves anything that is below it in dignity, it degrades itself.

The higher the love, the more demands will be made on us to conform to that ideal.

In moments when fever, agony, and pain make it hard to pray, the suggestion of prayer that comes from merely holding the rosary - or better still, from caressing the Crucifix at the end of it - is tremendous!

Why is anyone lovable - if it be not that God put His love into each of us?

The old liberal rebelled against taxation without responsibility, the new liberal wants the taxation as a handout without responsibility.

We must go out to Pure Life, Pure Truth, Pure Love, and that is the definition of God. He is the ultimate goal of life; from Him we came, and in Him alone do we find our peace.

No soul ever fell away from God without giving up prayer. Prayer is that which establishes contact with Divine Power and opens the invisible resources of heaven. However dark the way, when we pray, temptation can never master us. The first step downward in the average soul is the giving up of the practice of prayer, the breaking of the circuit with divinity, and the proclamation of one's owns self sufficiency.

Counsel involving right and wrong should never be sought from a man who does not say his prayers.

But there was no room at the inn; the inn is the gathering place of public opinion; so often public opinion locks its doors to the King.

The wicked fear the good, because the good are a constant reproach to their consciences. The ungodly like religion in the same way that they like lions, either dead or behind bars; they fear religion when it breaks loose and begins to challenge their consciences.

The day that man forgets that love is identical with sacrifice, he will ask how a God of love could demand mortification and self-denial.

How can one love self without being selfish? How can one love others without losing self? The answer is: By loving both self and neighbor in God. It is His Love that makes us love both self and neighbor rightly.

Skeptics always want miracles such as stepping down from the Cross, but never the greater miracle of forgiveness.

If we use our lives for other purposes than those given by God, not only do we miss happiness, but we actually hurt ourselves and beget in us queer little kinks.

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