Francois Fenelon
Francois Fenelon
François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, more commonly known as François Fénelon, was a French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer. He today is remembered mostly as the author of The Adventures of Telemachus, first published in 1699...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionClergyman
CountryFrance
taste niceties rejects
Good taste rejects excessive nicety.
prayer desire praying
I would have no desire other than to accomplish thy will. Teach me to pray; pray thyself in me.
lying dies
It is better to die than to tell a lie
courage despise peril
Before putting yourself in peril, it is necessary to foresee and fear it; but when one is there, nothing remains but to despise it.
relatives-and-friends giving want
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.
rejected gift-from-god accounts
The gifts of God are not to be rejected on account of the channel that brings them.
perfect people quiet
The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become toward the defects of other people.
simple guides
Make this simple rule the guide of your life: to have no will but God's.
desire
I no longer desire anything but to be Thine.
life success religious
There is a set of religious, or rather moral, writings which teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery in this world. A very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.
country heart want
How dangerous it is for our salvation, how unworthy of God and of ourselves, how pernicious even for the peace of our hearts, to want always to stay where we are! Our whole life was only given us to advance us by great strides toward our heavenly country.
loss presence-of-mind brave
I had often heard Mentor say, that the voluptuous were never brave, and I now found by experience that it was true; for the Cyprians whose jollity had been so extravagant and tumultuous, now sunk under a sense of their danger and wept like women. I heard nothing but the screams of terror and the wailings of hopeless distress. Some lamented the loss of pleasures that were never to return; but none had presence of mind either to undertake or direct the navigation of the menaced vessel.
knowing giving moments
Frequently a big advantage can be gained by knowing how to give in at the right moment.
virtue prudence
Courage is a virtue only so far as it is directed by prudence.