Best François Fénelon Quotes

The past but lives in written words: a thousand ages were blank if books had not evoked their ghosts, and kept the pale unbodied shades to warn us from fleshless lips.

How rare it is to find a soul quiet enough to hear God speak.

If we were faultless we should not be so much annoyed by the defects of those with whom we associate.

Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half.

Most people I ask little from. I try to give them much, and expect nothing in return and I do very well in the bargain.

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

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

All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than in enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than in expectation.

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 more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit.

Children are excellent observers, and will often perceive your slightest defects. In general, those who govern children, forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves.

Exactness and neatness in moderation is a virtue, but carried to extremes narrows the mind.