Sheen Fulton Quotes & Sayings

Sex divorced from love, instead of raising man by taking him away from himself, drags him down to the hall of mirrors where he is always confronted with self. Sex does not care about the person, but about the act. The fig leaf which once was put over the secret parts of man and woman in sculpture is now put over the face. The person does not matter. — Fulton J. Sheen

Being is the soul of every concept, of every judgment and of every reasoning. — Fulton J. Sheen

By the mere fact that we do not go forward, we go backward. — Fulton J. Sheen

The deaf who deny they are deaf will never hear; the sinners who deny there is sin deny thereby the remedy of sin, and thus cut themselves off forever from Him Who came to redeem. — Fulton J. Sheen

The good repent on knowing their sin; the evil become angry when discovered. Ignorance is not the cause of evil, as Plato held; neither is education the answer to the removal of evil. These men had an intellect as well as a will; knowledge as well as intention. Truth can be known and hated; Goodness can be known and crucified. The Hour was approaching, and for the moment the fear of the people deterred the Pharisees. Violence could not be triggered against Him until He would say, 'This is your Hour. — Fulton J. Sheen

To love what is below the human is degradation; to love what is human for the sake of the human is mediocrity; to love the human for the sake of the Divine is enriching; to love the Divine for its own sake is sanctity. — Fulton J. Sheen

The humble, simple souls, who are little enough to see the bigness of God in the littleness of a Babe, are therefore the only ones who will ever understand the reason of His visitation. He came to this poor earth of ours to carry on an exchange; to say to us, as only the Good God could say: 'you give me your humanity, and I will give you my Divinity; you give me your time, and I will give you My eternity; you give me your broken heart, and I will give you Love; you give me your nothingness, and I will give you My all. — Fulton J. Sheen

Before the sin, Satan assures us that it is of no consequence; after the sin, he persuades us that it is unforgivable. — Fulton J. Sheen

A smile across the aisle of a bus in the morning could save a suicide later in the day. — Fulton J. Sheen

Since evil is nothing positive, there can be no principle of evil. It has no meaning expect in reference to something good. — Fulton J. Sheen

Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double. — Fulton J. Sheen

In the eleven months preceding the outbreak of World War II, 211 treaties of peace were signed. Were these treaties of peace written on paper, or were they written on the hearts of men? And we must ask ourselves as we hear of treaties being written today, whether the treaties of the UN are written with the full cognizance of the fact that those who sign them are responsible before God? — Fulton J. Sheen

Hous vivons aux temps des assassins - "we live in days of assassins" - where evil is sought in lives more than good in order to justify a world with a bad conscience. — Fulton J. Sheen

Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved; there can be no world peace without soul peace. — Fulton J. Sheen

If it be true that the world has lost its respect for authority, it is only because it lost it first in the home. By a peculiar paradox, as the home loses its authority, the authority of the state becomes tyrannical. — Fulton J. Sheen

If there is continuity in the universe, it is fitting that there should be intelligent beings without bodies which are called angels. — Fulton J. Sheen

Charity is to be measured, not by what one has given away, but by what one has left. — Fulton J. Sheen

There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be. — Fulton J. Sheen

Once a man ceases to be of service to his neighbor, he begins to be a burden to him. — Fulton J. Sheen

FREUDIANISM interprets man in terms of sex; Christianity interprets sex in terms of man. — Fulton J. Sheen

Discussion is also a most excellent means to avoid -decision- — Fulton J. Sheen

When the "deity" of the other is deflated, either because it is exhausted or because one becomes accustomed to living with a "god" or a "goddess," there is a terrific sense of ennui and boredom. — Fulton J. Sheen

In vain will the world seek for equality until it has seen all men through the eyes of faith. Faith teaches that all men, however poor, or ignorant, or crippled, however maimed, ugly, or degraded they may be, all bear within themselves the image of God, and have been bought by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. As this truth is forgotten, men are valued only because of what they can do, not because of what they are. — Fulton J. Sheen

There are 200 million poor in the world who would gladly take the vow of poverty if they could eat, dress and have a home like I do — Fulton J. Sheen

To fall in love means to fall into something ... And that something is responsibility. — Fulton J. Sheen

Years ago atheism was an individual phenomenon; today atheism is social, the atheist who once was a curiosity, is now a component part of some of the governments of the world. Once men quarreled because they wanted God worshipped in a certain way; now they quarrel because they do not want God worshipped at all. The wars of religion of the seventeenth century have become the wars against religion of the twentieth century. — Fulton J. Sheen

It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished. — Fulton J. Sheen

If we had intellectual vigour enough to ascend from effects to causes, we would explain political, economical and social phenomena less by credit sheets, balance of trade and reparations than by our attitude towards God. — Fulton J. Sheen

Many a modern preacher is far less concerned with preaching Christ and Him crucified than he is with his popularity with his congregation. A want of intellectual backbone makes him straddle the ox of truth and the ass of nonsense. Bending the knee to the mob rather than God would probably make them scruple at ever playing the role of John the Baptist before a modern Herod. The acids of modernity are eating away the fossils of orthodoxy. — Fulton J. Sheen

libido, or concupiscence, a tending toward certain things in defiance of rational restraint. — Fulton J. Sheen

The essence of obscenity is the turning of the inner mystery into a jest. — Fulton J. Sheen

The mind has three operations: the formation of ideas, judgements and reasoning. — Fulton J. Sheen

The world is living today in what might be described as an era of carnality, which glorifies sex, hates restraint, identifies purity with coldness, innocence with ignorance, and turns men and women into Buddhas with their eyes closed, hands folded across their breasts, intently looking inward, thinking only of self. — Fulton J. Sheen

There is a tendency among many shallow thinkers of our day to teach that every human act is a reflex, over which we do not exercise human control. They would rate a generous deed as no more praiseworthy than a wink, a crime as no more voluntary than a sneeze ... Such a philosophy undercuts all human dignity ... All of us have the power of choice in action at every moment of our lives. — Fulton J. Sheen

He told them therefore that He was not a Teacher asking for a disciple who would parrot His sayings; He was a Saviour Who first disturbed a conscience and then purified it. But many would never get beyond hating the disturber. The Light is no boon, except to those who are men of good will; their lives may be evil, but at least they want to be good. His Presence, He said, was a threat to sensuality, avarice, and lust. When a man has lived in a dark cave for years, his eyes cannot stand the light of the sun; so the man who refuses to repent turns against mercy. No one can prevent the sun from shining, but every man can pull down the blinds and shut it out. — Fulton J. Sheen

Divinely wise souls often infuriate the worldly-wise because they always see things from the Divine point of view. The worldly are willing to let anyone believe in God if he pleases, but only on condition that a belief in God will mean no more than belief in anything else. They will allow God, provided that God does not matter. But taking God seriously is precisely what makes the saint. As St. Teresa put it, "What is not God to me is nothing." This passion is called snobbish, intolerant, stupid, and unwarranted intrusion; yet those who resent it deeply wish in their own hearts that they had the saint's inner peace and happiness. — Fulton J. Sheen

Some will not look on suffering because it creates responsibility. — Fulton J. Sheen

The familiar would of sense experience is not entirely objectively real, but is to some extent a product of the scientists' reasoning. — Fulton J. Sheen

There are ultimately only two possible adjustments to life; one is to suit our lives to principles; the other is to suit principles to our lives. If we do not live as we think, we soon begin to think as we live. The method of adjusting moral principles to the way men live is just a perversion of the order of things. — Fulton J. Sheen

The denial of the right of ownership to a man is a denial of his basic freedom: freedom without property is always incomplete. To be "secured" - but with no accompanying responsibility - is to be the slave of whatever group provides the security. — Fulton J. Sheen

Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive. They are too often praised for being broadminded when they are so broadminded they can never make up their minds about anything. — Fulton J. Sheen

A person is merciful when he feels the sorrow and misery of another as if it were his own. — Fulton J. Sheen

Science is not wisdom. — Fulton J. Sheen

The lover of God never knows the words "too much." Those who accuse others of loving God or religion too much really do not love God at all, nor do they know the meaning of love. — Fulton J. Sheen

The higher the love, the more demands will be made on us to conform to that ideal. — Fulton J. Sheen

It is a long established principle of the Church never to completely drop from her public worship any ceremony, object or prayer which once occupied a place in that worship. — Fulton J. Sheen

In the circuits of the planets there are times when the heavens are under the earth, and in the ways of God with men there was a time when Heaven was under the earth, and that was when Christ was born in the cave of Bethlehem. — Fulton J. Sheen

Buddha wrote a code which he said would be useful to guide men in darkness, but he never claimed to be the Light of the world. Buddhism was born with a disgust for the world, when a prince's son deserted his wife and child, turning from the pleasures of existence to the problems of existence. Burnt by the fires of the world, and already weary with it, Buddha turned to ethics. — Fulton J. Sheen

Evil is thus a kind of parasite on goodness. If there were no good by which to measure things, evil could not exist. Men sometimes forget this, and say, there is so much evil in the world that there cannot be a God. They are forgetting that, if there were no God, they would have no way of distinguishing evil from goodness. The very concept of evil admits and recognizes a Standard, a Whole, a Rule, an Order. Nobody would say that his automobile was out of order if he did not have a conception of how an automobile ought to run. — Fulton J. Sheen

The Soviet Union is like the Cross without Christ, while American culture is like Christ without the Cross. — Fulton J. Sheen

A spirit of license makes a man refuse to commit himself to any standards. The right time is the way he sets his watch. The yardstick has the number of inches that he wills it to have. Liberty becomes license, and unbounded license leads to unbounded tyranny. When society reaches this stage, and there is no standard of right and wrong outside of the individual himself, then the individual is defenseless against the onslaught of cruder and more violent men who proclaim their own subjective sense of values. Once my idea of morality is just as good as your idea of morality, then the morality that is going to prevail is the morality that is stronger. — Fulton J. Sheen

Shakespeare himself spoke of Heaven using wars as a punishment for perversities, lusts and passive barbarianism: If that the heavens do not their visible spirits Send quickly down to calm these vile offenses, It will come Humanity must perforce prey on itself, Like monsters of the deep. — Fulton J. Sheen

Never forget that there are only two philosophies to rule your life: the one of the cross, which starts with the fast and ends with the feast. The other of Satan, which starts with the feast and ends with the headache. — Fulton J. Sheen

Temptation is not a sin but playing with temptation invites sin. — Fulton J. Sheen

I feel it is time that I also pay tribute to my four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. — Fulton J. Sheen

If you wish to convert anyone to the fullness of the knowledge of Our Lord and of His Mystical Body, then teach him the Rosary. One of two things will happen. Either he will stop saying the Rosary - or he will get the gift of faith. — Fulton J. Sheen

Possession properly has two faces, two aspects: we all have a right to private property, but this is accompanied by our responsibility for its righteous use. These two things (which should be inseparable) are frequently divided today. Everyone admits that the farmer who own a horse is obligated to feed and care for it, but in the case of stocks and bonds, we often forget that the same principle should prevail. — Fulton J. Sheen

All love craves unity. As the highest peak of love in the human order is the unity of husband and wife in the flesh, so the highest unity in the Divine order is the unity of the soul and Christ in communion. — Fulton J. Sheen

Sometimes the only way the good Lord can get into some hearts is to break them. — Fulton J. Sheen

These are but a few specimens of philosophy which is no longer conscious of its own intrinsic worth, and which sees no higher mission in life for itself than applying the categories of the material to the spiritual, of the physical to the mental, and the spatio-temporal to the eternal. — Fulton J. Sheen

Many married women who have deliberately spurned the "hour" of childbearing are unhappy and frustrated. They never discovered the joys of marriage because they refused to surrender to the obligation of their state. In saving themselves, they lost themselves! — Fulton J. Sheen

A man without God is not like a cake without raisins; he is like a cake without the flour and milk; he lacks the essential ingredients. — Fulton J. Sheen

Every moment comes to you pregnant with divine purpose ... Once it leaves your hands and your power to do with it as you please, it plunges into eternity, to remain forever what you made it. — Fulton J. Sheen

Physical experience is the translation of phenomena into symbolic language, and the law is the creation of the wind or a symbol. — Fulton J. Sheen

You are infinitely precious because you are loved by God. — Fulton J. Sheen

St. Augustine also states that, in a sense, shame is related to disobedience. Positively, this would mean that when there is perfect obedience to God, there is no shame. This confirms somewhat the spiritual truth that Catholic educators have observed, namely, that as obedience to the law of Christ increases, concupiscence or the passions actually diminish. — Fulton J. Sheen

There is no word more "dangerous" than liberalism, because to oppose it is the new "unforgivable sin." — Fulton J. Sheen

The big print giveth, and the fine print taketh away. — Fulton J. Sheen

Souls generally do not fall away from Christ because of the Creed; they first have difficulty with the Commandments. — Fulton J. Sheen

Today (1950), the hatred of the Moslem countries against the West is becoming hatred against Christianity itself. Although the statesmen have not yet taken it into account, there is still grave danger that the temporal power of Islam may return and, with it, the menace that it may shake off a West which has ceased to be Christian, and affirm itself as a great anti-Christian world Power. — Fulton J. Sheen

America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance - it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded. — Fulton J. Sheen

Many souls fail to find God because they want a religion which will remake society without remaking themselves. — Fulton J. Sheen

Most commit the same mistake with God that they do with their friends: they do all the talking. — Fulton J. Sheen

It's impossible to lose your footing when you're on your knees. — Fulton J. Sheen

You must remember to love people and use things, rather than to love things and use people. — Fulton J. Sheen

Our Lord did not ask us to give up the things of earth, but to exchange them for better things. — Fulton J. Sheen

To see a priest making his meditation before Mass does more for an altar boy's vocation than a thousand pieces of inspirational literature. — Fulton J. Sheen

Sex has become one of the most discussed subjects of modern times. The Victorians pretended it did not exist; the moderns pretend nothing else exists. — Fulton J. Sheen

When you are getting kicked from the rear it means you are in front. — Fulton J. Sheen

The modern man, finding that Humanism and Sex both fail to satisfy, seeks his happiness in Science ... But Science fails too, for it is something more than a knowledge of matter the soul craves. — Fulton J. Sheen

The old liberal rebelled against taxation without responsibility, the new liberal wants the taxation as a handout without responsibility. — Fulton J. Sheen

Lenten practices of giving up pleasures are good reminders that the purpose of life is not pleasure. The purpose of life is to attain to perfect life, all truth and undying ecstatic love - which is the definition of God. In pursuing that goal we find happiness. Pleasure is not the purpose of anything; pleasure is a by-product resulting from doing something that is good. One of the best ways to get happiness and pleasure out of life is to ask ourselves, 'How can I please God?' and, 'Why am I not better?' It is the pleasure-seeker who is bored, for all pleasures diminish with repetition. — Fulton J. Sheen

No man hates God without first hating himself. — Fulton J. Sheen

God's side is determined not by geography, but by those who do His will. If Germans, English, Japanese, and Americans prayed right, they would all be praying for the same intention: Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. And what is that Will? The reign of Justice and Charity in the hearts of men. Through a prayerful contemplation of war we will see not soldiers of different nations in combat, but one great family, quarreling, fighting, wounding, and all in need of the peace and charity of Christ which we hope to obtain by our supplications. — Fulton J. Sheen

All our anxieties relate to time. — Fulton J. Sheen

God has given different gifts for different people. There is no basis for feeling inferior to another who has a different gift. Once it is realised that we shall be judged by the gift we have received, rather than the gift we have not, one is completely delivered from a false sense of inferiority. — Fulton J. Sheen

Communism is an aggressive religion of the species. — Fulton J. Sheen

The more clearly a man understands anything, the more readily he can summarize it in a few words. — Fulton J. Sheen

The Angelic Doctor himself is not certain that the astronomical theories of his own time explain the heavens and the movements of the sun and the stars — Fulton J. Sheen

In a like manner, as soon as we know the meaning of being and the meaning of nonbeing, we know that a thing cannot be and not be at one and the same time, and under the same formal consideration. — Fulton J. Sheen

The pure in heart shall see God, because they always do His will. Purity does not begin in the body but in the will. From there it flows outward, cleansing thought, imagination, and, finally, the body. Bodily purity is a repercussion or echo of the will. Life is impure only when the will is impure. — Fulton J. Sheen

The mystery of creativeness is surrounded with awe. A special reverence does envelop the power to be co-creators with God in the making of human life. It is this hidden element that in a special way belongs to God, as does the grace of God in the sacraments. Those who speak of sex alone concentrate on the physical or visible element, forgetting the spiritual or invisible mystery of creativeness. Humans in the sacraments supply the act, the bread, the water, and the words; God supplies the grace, the mystery. In the sacred act of creating life, man and woman supply the unity of the flesh; God supplies the soul and the mystery. Such is the mystery of sex. — Fulton J. Sheen

They never loved in the first place, for love never takes back that which it gives, even in unfaithfulness. — Fulton J. Sheen

If all things in this universe exist, it is because they participate in the Being of God, if there are some things with life, it is because they are reflections of the life of God; if there are beings endowed with intellect and will - like men and angels - it's because they are a participation of the Sovereign Intellect which is God. — Fulton J. Sheen

The workmen in a factory may have a shadowy, unknown absentee "employer" - the thousands of individual owners of stock - whom "management" represents and tries to please by extra dividends. The workman's livelihood is at the disposition of strangers who make a single demand of their representatives: higher profits. — Fulton J. Sheen

Education lays hold of what is best in a person, but character lays hold of what is worse. It takes hold of a failing and by very skillful manipulation and training turns it into a perfection. — Fulton J. Sheen

Your unhappiness is not due to your want of a fortune or high position or fame or sufficient vitamins. It is due not to a want of something outside of you, but to a want of something inside you. You were made for perfect happiness. No wonder everything short of God disappoints you. — Fulton J. Sheen

In this sublime hour, therefore, He calls all His children to the pulpit of the Cross, and every word He says to them is set down for the purpose of an eternal publication and an undying consolation. — Fulton J. Sheen

Evil may have its hour, but God will have His day. — Fulton J. Sheen

The danger today is in believing there are no sick people, there is only a sick society. — Fulton J. Sheen