Hesburgh Quotes & Sayings

One hand was behind his back, and he held it out, presenting a bouquet of white and smoky purple lilies. "They're straight from the underworld, by the way. They are everlasting. They won't die." — Jess C. Scott

My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are easy; you don't make them because they are cheap; you don't make them because they're popular; you make them because they're right. — Theodore Hesburgh

There is no conflict between science and theology, except where there is bad science or bad theology. — Theodore Hesburgh

It is easier to exemplify values than teach them. — Theodore Hesburgh

I'll have another beer. I'm not driving. — Theodore Hesburgh

Voting is a civic sacrament. — Theodore Hesburgh

Good and safe" are all I have been during my romantic career, keeping myself virtuous outside of relationships never putting out before I had a commitment and a half dozen dates under my belt. — Valentine Glass

The value of affection going up when it was in short supply — LaVyrle Spencer

The greatest fallout of the space program, ... was not the close-up view of the moon, but a look at spaceship Earth from afar. For the first time in the history of humanity, we were able to see our planet for what it really is. — Theodore Hesburgh

It's very important to feel good in my clothes. I like fashion that suits me. I don't take it too seriously. — Charlotte Casiraghi

There is no academic virtue in playing mediocre football and no academic vice in winning a game that by all odds one should lose ... There has been a surrender at Notre Dame, but it is a surrender to excellence on all fronts, and in this we hope to rise above ourselves with the help of God. — Theodore Hesburgh

Anyone who refuses to speak out off campus does not deserve to be listened to on campus. — Theodore Hesburgh

Faith is not an easy virtue; but, in the broad world of a person's total voyage through time to eternity, faith is not only a gracious companion, but an essential guide. — Theodore Hesburgh

I can think of no better way of redeeming this tragic world today than love and laughter. Too many of the young have forgotten how to laugh, and too many of the elders have forgotten how to love. Would not our lives be lightened if only we could all learn to laugh more easily at ourselves and to love one another? — Theodore Hesburgh

Bill Walton, UH Volleyball coach, after his player kept looking at him on the bench every time the ball hit the floor ... Next time you look at me I'll put you on the bench where you can see me better. My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are easy; you don't make them because they are cheap; you don't make them because they are popular. You make them because they are right. — Theodore Hesburgh

A decade after an average athlete graduates, everyone will have forgotten when and where he played. But every time he speaks, everyone will know whether he was educated. — Theodore Hesburgh

It didn't matter that there were actually two lakes there, ... It didn't matter that he had only $300 in his pocket. He had the gall, or the zeal, to call it not a school, or a college, but a university. — Theodore Hesburgh

I have lived long enough to see real, significant changes made for the good...and I have been fortunate enough to have participated in some of them...One person can make a difference!
(Father Ted Hesburgh, C.S.C., quoted in our book, God's Icebreaker by Jill A. Boughton and Julie Walters) — Jill A. Boughton

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet. — Theodore M. Hesburgh

I usually spend the hiatus of 'Dexter' in New York in a way to balance things. — Jennifer Carpenter

Be willing to lose a battle in order to win the war. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Is it true that the beyond, that everything beyond is here in this life? I can't hear you. Who goes there? Is it only me? Is it myself? — Andre Breton

American Dream Is Under Assault. People that haven't been able to find a job in months and this growing sense in this country that this is the new normal, well we can't accept that. — Marco Rubio

The very essence of leadership is you have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion.
Whatever you value, be committed to it and let nothing distract you from this goal. The uncommitted life, like Plato's unexamined life, is not worth living. — Theodore M. Hesburgh

Once He created the Big Bang ... He could have envisioned it going in billions of directions as it evolved, including billions of life-forms and billions of kinds of intelligent beings. As a theologian, I would say that the proposed search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is also a search of knowing and understanding God through his works - especially those works that most reflect Him. Finding others than ourselves would mean knowing Him better. — Theodore Hesburgh

God is not so wary as we, else He would give us no friends, lest we forget Him! The charms of the heaven in the bush are superseded, I fear, by the heaven in the hand, occasionally. — Emily Dickinson

All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance. — Theodore Hesburgh

The most important thing that a father can do for his children is to love their mother. — Theodore M. Hesburgh

The melting pot failed to function in one crucial area. Religions and nationalities, however different, generally learned to live together, even to grow together, in America. But color was something else. Reds were murdered like wild animals. Yellows were characterized as a peril and incarcerated en masse during World War ii for no really good reason by our most liberal president. Browns have been abused as the new slave labor on farms. The blacks, who did not come here willingly, are now, more than a century after emancipation by Lincoln, still suffering a host of slave like inequalities. — Theodore Hesburgh