Quotes from Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Nothing ever happens in the world that does not happen first inside human hearts.

Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths.

Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.

Any book which inspires us to lead a better life is a good book.

All worry is atheism, because it is a want of trust in God.

Ever since the days of Adam, man has been hiding from God and saying, 'God is hard to find.

Ignorance of ourselves is another reason for forgiving others. Unfortunately it is ourselves we know least; our neighbor's sins, weaknesses, and failures we know a thousand times better than our own. Criticism of others may be bad, but it is want of self-criticism which is worse.

One day a woman went to the saintly Father John Vianney, the Curé of Ars, in France, and said, "My husband has not been to the sacraments or to Mass for years. He has been unfaithful, wicked, and unjust. He has just fallen from a bridge and was drowned —a double death of body and soul." The Curé answered, "Madam, there is a short distance between the bridge and the water, and it is that distance which forbids you to judge.

It is not hatred that is wrong; it is hating the wrong thing that is wrong. It is not anger that is wrong; it is being angry at the wrong thing that is wrong. Tell me your enemy, and I will tell you what you are. Tell me your hatred, and I will tell you your character.

In fact, in order that we may never know ourselves, we hate silence and solitariness. Lest our conscience should carry on with us an unbearable repartee, we drown out its voice in amusements, distractions, and noise. If we met ourselves in others, we would hate them.

The only real escape from the demands of the flesh is to find something more than the flesh to love; and that Mary is the refuge of sinners.

The only way love can be shown in this world is by sacrifice —namely, the surrender of one thing for another. Love is essentially bound up with choice, and choice is a negation, and negation is a sacrifice. When a young man sets his heart upon a young woman and asks her to marry him, he is not only saying "I choose you"; he is also saying "I do not choose, I reject, all others. I give them all up for you." Apply this to the problem of lust.