Top 150 François Fénelon Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “If we were faultless, we should not be so much annoyed by the defects of those with whom we associate. If we were to acknowledge honestly that we have not virtue enough to bear patiently with our neighbor’s weaknesses, we should show our own imperfection, and this alarms our vanity.”

— François Fénelon

52. “O Lord! take my heart, for I cannot give it; and when Thou hast it, O! keep it, for I cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of myself, for Jesus Christ’s sake.”

— François Fénelon

53. “Violent excitement exhausts the mind and leaves it withered and sterile.”

— François Fénelon

54. “It is better to die than to tell a lie.”

— François Fénelon

55. “All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than in enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than in expectation.”

— François Fénelon

56. “Simplicity is that grace which frees the soul from all unnecessary reflections upon itself.”

— François Fénelon

57. “Peace does not dwell in outward things but within the soul; we may preserve it in the midst of the bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence to, not an exemption from, suffering.”

— François Fénelon

58. “In the light of eternity we shall see that what we desired would have been fatal to us, and that what we would have avoided was essential to our well-being.”

— François Fénelon

59. “Real friends are our greatest joy and our greatest sorrow. It were almost to be wished that all true and faithful friends should expire on the same day.”

— François Fénelon

60. “There is no more dangerous illusion than the fancies by which people try to avoid illusion.”

— François Fénelon

61. “Courage is a virtue only so far as it is directed by prudence.”

— François Fénelon

62. “When you come to be sensibly touched, the scales will fall from your eyes; and by the penetrating eyes of love you will discern that which your other eyes will never see.”

— François Fénelon

63. “Thou lovest like an infinite God when Thou lovest; Thou movest heaven and earth to save Thy loved ones. Thou becomest man, a babe, the vilest of men, covered with reproaches, dying with infamy and under the pangs of the cross; all this is not too much for an infinite love.”

— François Fénelon

64. “Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half.”

— François Fénelon

65. “Oh! how seldom the soul is silent, in order that God may speak.”

— François Fénelon

66. “True love goes ever straight forward, not in its own strength, but esteeming itself as nothing. Then indeed we are truly happy. The cross is no longer a cross when there is no self to suffer under it.”

— François Fénelon

67. “Carefully purify your conscience from daily faults; suffer no sin to dwell in your heart; small as it may seem, it obscures the light of grace, weighs down the soul, and hinders that constant communion with Jesus Christ which it should be your pleasure to cultivate.”

— François Fénelon

68. “True piety hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing constrained. It enlarges the heart; it is simple, free, and attractive.”

— François Fénelon

69. “Sordid and infamous sensuality, the most dreadful evil that issued from the box of Pandora, corrupts every heart, and eradicates every virtue. Fly! wherefore dost thou linger? Fly, cast not one look behind thee; nor let even thy thought return to the accursed evil for a moment.”

— François Fénelon

70. “If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading I would spurn them all.”

— François Fénelon

71. “Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer, and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.”

— François Fénelon

72. “That love of self, which the world advocates, is a thousand times more dangerous than any poison.”

— François Fénelon

73. “Nothing is more despicable than a professional talker who uses his words as a quack uses his remedies.”

— François Fénelon

74. “God is our true Friend, who always gives us the counsel and comfort we need. Our danger lies in resisting Him; so it is essential that we acquire the habit of hearkening to His voice, or keeping silence within, and listening so as to lose nothing of what He says to us.”

— François Fénelon

75. “The realization of God’s presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation.”

— François Fénelon

76. “Nothing is more false and more indiscreet than always to want to choose what mortifies us in everything. By this rule a person would soon ruin his health, his business, his reputation, his relations with his relatives and friends, in fact every good work which Providence gives him.”

— François Fénelon

77. “We must avoid fastidiousness; neatness, when it is moderate, is a virtue; but when it is carried to an extreme, it narrows the mind.”

— François Fénelon

78. “We must truly serve those whom we appear to command; we must bear with their imperfections, correct them with gentleness and patience, and lead them in the way to heaven.”

— François Fénelon

79. “I am not in the least surprised that your impression of death becomes more lively, in proportion as age and infirmity bring it nearer. God makes use of this rough trial to undeceive us in respect to our courage, to make us feel our weakness, and to keep us in all humility in His hands.”

— François Fénelon

80. “God never makes us sensible of our weakness except to give us of His strength.”

— François Fénelon

81. “As to our friend, I pray God to bestow upon him a simplicity that shall give him peace. Happy are they indeed who can bear their sufferings in the enjoyment of this simple peace and perfect acquiesence in the will of God.”

— François Fénelon

82. “It is when God appears to have abandoned us that we must abandon ourselves most wholly to God.”

— François Fénelon

83. “Time is given us that we may take care for eternity; and eternity will not be too long to regret the loss of our time if we have misspent it.”

— François Fénelon

84. “You really don’t even own the present moment, for even this belongs to God.”

— François Fénelon

85. “The gifts of God are not to be rejected on account of the channel that brings them.”

— François Fénelon

86. “Children are excellent observers, and will often perceive your slightest defects. In general, those who govern children, forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves.”

— François Fénelon

87. “If God bores you, tell Him that He bores you, that you prefer the vilest amusements to His presence, that you only feel at your ease when you are far from Him.”

— François Fénelon

88. “Before putting yourself in peril, it is necessary to foresee and fear it; but when one is there, nothing remains but to despise it.”

— François Fénelon

89. “The blood of a nation ought never to be shed except for its own preservation in the utmost extremity.”

— François Fénelon

90. “Be content with doing calmly the little which depends upon yourself, and let all else be to you as if it were not.”

— François Fénelon

91. “There is no real elevation of mind in a contempt of little things; it is, on the contrary, from too narrow views that we consider those things of little importance which have in fact such extensive consequences.”

— François Fénelon

92. “O God, the creature knows not to what end Thou hast made Him; teach him, and write in the depths of his soul that the clay must suffer itself to be shaped at the will of the potter.”

— François Fénelon

93. “A good historian is timeless; although he is a patriot, he will never flatter his country in any respect.”

— François Fénelon

94. “The passion of acquiring riches in order to support a vain expense corrupts the purest souls.”

— François Fénelon

95. “Worry is the cross which we make for ourselves by over anxiety.”

— François Fénelon

96. “Those who are wholly God’s are always happy.”

— François Fénelon

97. “Mankind, by the perverse depravity of their nature, esteem that which they have most desired as of no value the moment it is possessed, and torment themselves with fruitless wishes for that which is beyond their reach.”

— François Fénelon

98. “If we love Him infinitely more than we do ourselves, we make an unconditional sacr Here it is that the Spirit teaches us all truth; for all truth is eminently contained in this sacrifice of love, where the soul strips itself of every thing to present it to God.”

— François Fénelon

99. “I no longer desire anything but to be Thine.”

— François Fénelon

100. “I would have every minister of the gospel address his audience with the zeal of a friend, with the generous energy of a father, and with the exuberant affection of a mother.”

— François Fénelon