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Fulton J. Sheen Quotes

Venerable Fulton John Sheen was an American bishop of the Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio. The cause for his canonization as a saint was officially opened in 2002. In June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially recognized a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints stating that he lived a life of "heroic virtues" – a major step towards beatification – so he is now referred to as "Venerable."

Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria in 1919, Sheen quickly became a renowned theologian, earning the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International Philosophy in 1923. He went on to teach theology and philosophy at The Catholic University of America as well as acting as a parish priest before being appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1951. He held this position until 1966 when he was made the Bishop of Rochester from October 21, 1966, to October 6, 1969, when he resigned and was made the Archbishop of the Titular See of Newport, Wales.

For 20 years as Father Sheen, later Monsignor, he hosted the night-time radio program The Catholic Hour on NBC before moving to television and presenting Life Is Worth Living . Sheen's final presenting role was on the syndicated The Fulton Sheen Program with a format very similar to that of the earlier Life is Worth Living show. For this work, Sheen twice won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, and was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. Starting in 2009, his shows were being re-broadcast on the EWTN and the Trinity Broadcasting Network's Church Channel cable networks. Due to his contribution to televised preaching Sheen is often referred to as one of the first televangelists.

✵ 8. May 1895 – 9. December 1979
Fulton J. Sheen photo
Fulton J. Sheen: 78   quotes 66   likes

Famous Fulton J. Sheen Quotes

“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

Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

“In every friendship hearts grow and entwine themselves together, so that the two hearts seem to make only one heart with only a common thought. That is why separation is so painful; it is not so much two hearts separating, but one being torn asunder.”

Fulton J. Sheen

“[N]o man hates God without first hating himself.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 1, p. 11 http://books.google.com/books?id=ho40AAAAMAAJ&q=%22No+man+hates+God+without+first+hating+himself%22&pg=PA11#v=onepage

“A woman never tells you why she loves; she just tells you how she loves.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

“Anxiety increases in direct ratio and proportion as man departs from God.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 2, p. 19

Fulton J. Sheen Quotes about God

“If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself. You have a duty to worship God, not because He will be imperfect and unhappy if you do not, but because you will be imperfect and unhappy.”

Fulton J. Sheen

“A man may stand for the justice of God, but a woman stands for His Mercy.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

“Once you have surrendered yourself, you make yourself receptive. In receiving from God, you are perfected and completed.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

“There are two ways of waking up in the morning. One is to say, 'Good morning, God,' and the other is to say, 'Good God, morning'!”

Fulton J. Sheen

“The principle of democracy is a recognition of the sovereign, inalienable rights of man as a gift from God, the Source of law.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Whence Come Wars (1940), p. 60

“Far better it is for you to say: "I am a sinner," than to say: "I have no need of religion." The empty can be filled, but the self-intoxicated have no room for God.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

Fulton J. Sheen Quotes about life

“There are no plains in the spiritual life; we are either going uphill or coming down. Furthermore the pose of indifference is only intellectual. The will must choose. And even though an "indifferent" soul does not positively reject the infinite, the infinite rejects it.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 2, p. 20

“Man wants three things; life, knowledge, and love.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

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

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: The Quotable Fulton Sheen: A Topical Compilation of the Wit, Wisdom, and Satire of Archbishop 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

Religion Without God (1928). p. 90

“When the record of any human life is set down, there are three pairs of eyes who see it in a different light. There is the life as I see it. as others see it, and as God sees it.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Treasure in Clay: the Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, (New York, NY: Image Books/Doubleday, 1980)

Fulton J. Sheen: Trending quotes

“Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth.”

Fulton J. Sheen

"A Plea For Intolerance" (1931)

Truth , Evil , Personality , Patience

“Patience is power.
Patience is not an absence of action;
rather it is "timing"
it waits on the right time to act,
for the right principles
and in the right way.”

Fulton J. Sheen
Way , Time , Waiting , Patience

“A woman gets angry when a man denies his faults, because she knew them all along. His lying mocks her affection; it is the deceit that angers her more than the faults.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Lying , Anger

Fulton J. Sheen Quotes

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

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

World , Heart

“Science is not wisdom.”

Fulton J. Sheen
Wisdom , Science

“Each day he has a new idol, each week a new mood. His authority is public opinion: when that shifts, his frustrated soul shifts with it.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 1, pp. 7–8
Context: The modern man is no longer a unity, but a confused bundle of complexes and nerves. He is so dissociated, so alienated from himself that he sees himself less as a personality than as a battlefield where a civil war rages between a thousand and one conflicting loyalties. There is no single overall purpose in his life. His soul is comparable to a menagerie in which a number of beasts, each seeking its own prey, turn one upon the other. Or he may be likened to a radio, that is tuned in to several stations; instead of getting any one clearly, it receives only an annoying static.If the frustrated soul is educated, it has a smattering of uncorrected bits of information with no unifying philosophy. Then the frustrated soul may say to itself: "I sometimes think there are two of me a living soul and a Ph. D." Such a man projects his own mental confusion to the outside world and concludes that, since he knows no truth, nobody can know it. His own skepticism (which he universalizes into a philosophy of life) throws him back more and more upon those powers lurking in the dark, dank caverns of his unconsciousness. He changes his philosophy as he changes his clothes. On Monday, he lays down the tracks of materialism; on Tuesday, he reads a best seller, pulls up the old tracks, and lays the new tracks of an idealist; on Wednesday, his new roadway is Communistic; on Thursday, the new rails of Liberalism are laid; on Friday, he-hears a broadcast and decides to travel on Freudian tracks: on Saturday, he takes a long drink to forget his railroading and, on Sunday, ponders why people are so foolish as to go to Church. Each day he has a new idol, each week a new mood. His authority is public opinion: when that shifts, his frustrated soul shifts with it.

Soul , Mood

“Evil men may not always do these things, but they seek to destroy goodness, virtue, morality, decency, truth and honor”

Fulton J. Sheen

"Bishop Sheen Writes...Communism and Tragedy," The Toledo Blade, Sunday, July 26, 1959, sec. 2, p. 5. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22communists%20believe%20in%20the%20devil%22%20site:news.google.com/newspapers&source=newspapers&gws_rd=ssl#hl=en&q=%22Bishop+Sheen+Writes...+Communism+And+Tragedy%22+
Context: No one can understand Communism who does not believe in the devil. The Communists believe in the devil. The Communists organized a so-called "patriotic" church. A few brain washed were to be in charge of the churches because they were loyal to the anti-God regime.
One of the first orders given by the Communists to them was that the prayer to Prayer to Saint Michael be no longer said because it invoked the protection of St. Michael against "the wickedness and snares of the devil." As one Communist judge said: "We are those devils."
It is hard for many in the free world to believe that there are not only bad men, but evil men. Bad men steal, rape, ravage and plunder. Evil men may not always do these things, but they seek to destroy goodness, virtue, morality, decency, truth and honor. Bad men who steal admit honesty; evil men who do not steal, call dishonesty "honesty," totalitarianism "democracy," slavery "freedom." Evil men can be nice at table, polite with women, courteous in Washington, refined in London and calm in Geneva.
But the principle which guides their every move is the maxim of Lenin: every lie, trickery, knavery and deceit must be used to.

Men , Truth , Evil

“All our anxieties relate to time.”

Fulton J. Sheen

"Sanctifying the Moment" in Lift Up Your Heart (1950)
Context: All our anxieties relate to time. … The major problems of psychiatry revolve around an analysis of the despair, pessimism, melancholy, and complexes that are the inheritances of what has been or with the fears, anxieties, worries, that are the imaginings of what will be.

Time

“Books are the most wonderful friends in the world. When you meet them and pick them up, they are always ready to give you a few ideas. When you put them down, they never get mad; when you take them up again, they seem to enrich you all the more.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Books , World , Idea , Madness

“To tell a woman who is forty, "You look like sixteen," is boloney. The blarney way of saying it is "Tell me how old you are, I should like to know at what age women are the most beautiful.”

Fulton J. Sheen
Women , Age , Beauty , Way

“When a child is given to his parents, a crown is made for that child in Heaven, and woe to the parents who raise a child without consciousness of that eternal crown!”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Parent

“We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Love

“Show me your hands. Do they have scars from giving? Show me your feet. Are they wounded in service? Show me your heart. Have you left a place for divine love?”

Fulton J. Sheen
Love , Heart

“Broadmindedness, when it means indifference to right and wrong, eventually ends in a hatred of what is right.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life of Christ

Indifference

“Communism is the final logic of the dehumanization of man.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Second Series, p. 122
Life Is Worth Living (1951–1957)

Communication

“[P]eace of soul implies tranquillity of order, with material things ordered to the body, the body to the soul, the personality to neighbor and to God. Peace of mind is subjective tranquillity — a narrower thing. It requires great moral effort to attain peace of soul, but even those who are indifferent to right and wrong sometimes achieve peace of mind”

Fulton J. Sheen

which the Scriptures call "false peace"
Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 6, p. 112

God , Peace , Soul , Effort

“Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved; there can be no world peace unless there is soul peace. World wars are only projections of the conflicts waged inside the souls of men and women, for nothing happens in the external world that has not first happened within a soul.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 1, p. 1 (the opening paragraph of the book)

Women , Men , War , World

“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

God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy (1925). p. 86

Angels , Intelligence , Universe

“The revolt of the modern child against his parents is a miniature of the revolt of the modern world against the memory of 1900 years of Christian culture and the great Hebrew, Grecian and Roman cultures which preceded them. Any respect for that tradition is called "reactionary," with the result that the modern soul has developed a commentator mentality which judges yesterday by today, and today by tomorrow. Nothing is more tragic in an individual who once was wise than to lose his memory, and nothing is more tragic to a civilization than the loss of its tradition.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 1, p. 9

World , Soul , Parent , Memory

“We live in a sensate age. We are no longer governed by Faith, we are no longer governed by reason. We are governed by feelings.”

Fulton J. Sheen
Age , Faith , Feeling

“Christian theology is, in a certain sense, a psychology, since its primary interest is the soul, the most precious of things. Our Lord balanced a universe against a soul and found the soul worth more than gaining a world.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 1, p. 7

World , Soul , Sense , Universe

“By professing no ideal in morality, these nice people can never be accused of not living up to their creed. This is the great advantage that they have over the Christians — whose creed is so lofty that they can often and truly be accused of failing to meet its demands.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 5, p. 71

People

“There is not a single striving or pursuit or yearning of the human heart, even in the midst of the most sensual pleasures, that is not a dim grasping after the Infinite.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 4, p. 53

Pleasure , Heart

“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

"A Plea For Intolerance" (1931)

Truth , Error , Suffering , Evil

“No man has need of religion who is self-righteous, who is all he wants to be and all he ought to be.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: The Armor of God (1943), Ch. 1, p. 4

Religion

“There are angels near you to guide you and protect you, if you would but invoke them.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Angels
Life Is Worth Living (1951–1957)
Context: There are angels near you to guide you and protect you, if you would but invoke them. It is not later than we think, it is a bigger world than we think.

Angels

“Economic disorder is a symptom of spiritual disorder.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 2, p. 27
Context: It is assumed by many reformers that the principal and major cause of unhappiness is economic insecurity, but this theory forgets that there are economic problems only because men have not solved the problems of their own souls. Economic disorder is a symptom of spiritual disorder.

“Since a week ago last Saturday, we can no longer expect them to defend the law of God.”

Fulton J. Sheen

These sects will work out the very logic of their ways, and in 50 or 100 years there will be only the Catholic Church and paganism. We will be left to fight the battle alone, and we will."
Quoted in The Birth Control Review, May 1931, volume XV, no. 5., pp. 143-144. Reaction to the report of the Federal Council of Churches in America which, in March 1931, "endorsed 'the careful and restrained use of contraceptives by married people,' while at the same time conceding that 'serious evils, such as extramarital sex relations, may be increased by general knowledge of contraceptives.'" http://lifedynamics.com/app/uploads/2015/09/1931-05-May.pdf https://www.google.com/search?q=Church+and+paganism.+We+will+be+left+to+fight+the+battle+alone%2C+and+we+will&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=rcs#channel=rcs&tbm=bks&q=%22Since+a+week+ago+last+Saturday%2C+we+can+no+longer+expect+them+to+defend%22+

God , Law

“Criticism of others is thus an oblique form of self-commendation. We think we make the picture hang straight on our wall by telling our neighbors that all his pictures are crooked.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

Thinking

“There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Foreword to Radio Replies Vol. 1, (1938) page ix
Variant: There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church.

Hate , People

“The difference between the love of a man and the love of a woman is that a man will always give reasons for loving, but a woman gives no reasons for loving.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Love

“Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive.”

Fulton J. Sheen

As quoted in Seven Words to the Cross (1979) by Ellsworth Kalas, page 93
Context: 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.

People

“A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the child's mind, he does not understand teaching.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Life Is Worth Living

Understanding , Knowledge , Teachers

“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.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

Religion , Happiness

“The danger today is in believing there are no sick people, there is only a sick society.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Second Series, p. 186
Life Is Worth Living (1951–1957)

People

“The egocentric is always frustrated, simply because the condition of self-perfection is self-surrender. There must be a willingness to die to the lower part of self, before there can be a birth to the nobler.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary

Birth , Parting , Perfection

“[T]here is a tremendous egotism and conceit in those popular articles and lectures entitled,"My Idea of Religion," or "My Idea of God." An individual religion can be as misleading and uninformed as an individual astronomy or an individual mathematics.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 4, p. 59

God , Religion , Mathematics , Idea

“In contrast to the pride of those who deny their guilt to escape self-criticism is the humility of God, who made a world which added not to His glory and then made man to criticize Him.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 5, p. 85

God , World

“[H]e is of the intelligentsia (which means he has been educated beyond his intelligence).”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 6, p. 105

Education , Intelligence

“One function of the angels is illumination, and the other function is that of being a guardian.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Angels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaa7I44gkgc
Life Is Worth Living (1951–1957)

Angels

“You have a chance to move in far better society than the Joneses. Why worry about keeping up with the Joneses? Keep up with the Angels and you'll be far wiser and happier.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Angels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3r701k2dx8
Life Is Worth Living (1951–1957)

Angels , Chance

“All intense interest in luxury is a mark of inner poverty. The less grace there is in the soul, the more ornament must be on the body.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 2, p. 24

Soul

“We justify want of faith by saying, "I don't go to church, but I am better than those who do," as one might say, "I don't pay taxes or serve the nation, but I am better than those who do."”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 6, p. 113

Faith

“We find only what we seek: nature has many secrets to give us, but she will not surrender them until we sit down patiently before her and obey her laws. Only by such submission do we receive.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 5, p. 85

Secret , Law , Nature

“All my sermons are prepared in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. As recreation is most pleasant and profitable in the sun, so homiletic creativity is best nourished before the Eucharist. The most brilliant ideas come from meeting God face to face. The Holy Spirit that presided at the Incarnation is the best atmosphere for illumination. Pope John Paul II keeps a small desk or writing pad near him whenever he is in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament; and I have done this all my life — I am sure for the same reason he does, because a lover always works better when the beloved is with him.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Treasure in Clay : The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen (1980)

Life , God , Lovers , Idea

“By denying any ultimate standard outside of self, one can escape all self-blame and go through life on a perpetual mission of face saving.”

Fulton J. Sheen

Source: Peace of Soul (1949), Ch. 6, p. 103

Life

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