Francois Fenelon

“Let the water flow beneath the bridge; let men be men, that is to say, weak, vain, inconstant, unjust, false, and presumptuous; let the world be the world still; you cannot prevent it. Let every one follow his own inclination and habits; you cannot recast them, and the best course is, to let them be as they are and bear with them. Do not think it strange when you witness unreasonableness and injustice; rest in peace in the bosom of God; He sees it all more clearly than you do, and yet permits it. Be content to do quietly and gently what it becomes you to do, and let everything else be to you as though it were not.”

“True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words; for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then is to desire -- but to desire what God would have us desire. He who asks what he does not from the bottom of his heart desire, is mistaken in thinking that he prays.”

“We desire that God would give us the death-stroke; but we long to die without pain; we would die to our own will by the power of the will itself; we want to lose all and still hold all. Ah! what agony, what distress, when God has brought us to the end of our strength! We faint like a patient under a painful surgical operation. But the comparison is nought, for the object of the surgeon is to give us life -- that of God to make us die.”

“Little faults become great, and even monstrous in our eyes, in proportion as the pure light of God increases in us; just as the sun in rising, reveals the true dimensions of objects which were dimly and confusedly discovered during the night.”

“All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers.”

“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.”

“Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as by self-examination thoroughly to know our own.”

“Had we not faults of our own, we should take less pleasure in complaining of others.”

“Despondency is not a state of humility; on the contrary, it is the vexation and despair of a cowardly pride--nothing is worse; whether we fall, we must only think of rising again and going on course.”

“Children are very nice observers, and they will often perceive our slightest defects. It general those who govern children forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves.”

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

“Discouragement is simply the despair of wounded self-love.”

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

“The wind of God is always blowing... but you must hoist your sail.”

“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.”

“If the riches of the Indies, or the crowns of all the kingdom of Europe,were laid at my feet in exchange for my love of reading,I would spurn them all.”

“The history of the world suggests that without love of God there is little likelihood of a love for man that does not become corrupt.”