Fénelon citations

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“Chacun doit infiniment plus au genre humain, qui est la grande patrie, qu'à la patrie particulière dans laquelle il est né.”

“L'humilité produit le support d'autrui. La vue seule de nos misères peut nous rendre compatissants et indulgents pour celles d'autrui”

“Les hommes sont fort à plaindre d'avoir à être gouvernés par un roi, qui n'est qu'homme semblable à eux; car il faudroit des dieux pour redresser les hommes. Mais les rois ne sont pas moins à plaindre, n'étant qu'hommes, c'est-à-dire foibles et imparfaits, d'avoir à gouverner cette multitude innombrable d'hommes corrompus et trompeurs.”

“Tout le genre humain n’est qu’une famille dispersée sur la face de toute la terre. Tous les peuples sont frères, et doivent s’aimer comme tels.”

“Nous verrons à sa lumière, dans l'éternité, que ce que nous désirions nous eût été funeste, et que ce que nous voulions éviter était essentiel à notre bonheur.”

“Sur-tout ne vous laissez point ensorceler par les attraits diaboliques de la géométrie.”

“Quiconque est capable de mentir est indigne d'être compté au nombre des hommes; et quiconque ne sait pas se taire est indigne de gouverner.”

“Les traités de paix ne couvrent rien, lorsque vous êtes le plus fort, & que vous réduisez vos voisins à signer le traité pour éviter de plus grands maux: alors il signe comme un particulier donne sa bourse à un voleur qui lui tient le pistolet sur la gorge.”

“Remarquez un grand défaut des éducations ordinaires: on met tout le plaisir d'un côté , et tout l'ennui de l'autre; tout l'ennui dans l'étude, tout le plaisir dans les divertissements.”

“D'ordinaire, ceux qui gouvernent les enfants ne leur pardonnent rien, et se pardonnent tout à eux-mêmes.”

“Je proteste que personne n'admire Cicéron plus que je fais: il embellit tout ce qu’il touche.”

“The good historian is not for any time or any country: while he loves his fatherland, he never flatters it in anything.”

“We must bear our crosses; self is the greatest of them all. If we die in part every day of our lives, we shall have but little to do on the last. O how utterly will these little daily deaths destroy the power of the final dying!”

“Jesus Christ was born in a stable; He was obliged to fly into Egypt; thirty years of His life were spent in a workshop; He suffered hunger, thirst, and weariness; He was poor, despised, and miserable; He taught the doctrines of heaven, and no one would listen. The great and the wise persecuted and took Him, subjected Him to frightful torments, treated Him as a slave, and put Him to death between two malefactors, having preferred to give liberty to a robber, rather than to suffer Him to escape. Such was the life which our Lord chose; while we are horrified at any kind of humiliation, and cannot bear the slightest appearance of contempt.”

“If we had strength and faith enough to trust ourselves entirely to God, and follow Him simply wherever He should lead us, we should have no need of any great effort of mind to reach perfection.”

“Here it is that the Spirit teaches us all truth; for all truth is eminently contained in this sacrifice of love, where the soul strips itself of every thing to present it to God.”

“We are never less alone than when we are in the society of a single, faithful friend; never less deserted than when we are carried in the arms of the All-Powerful.”

“In the light of eternity we shall see that what we desired would have been fatal to us, and that what we would have avoided was essential to our well-being.”

“All the human kind is but one family, dispersed over the face of the whole earth; all men are brothers, and ought to love each other as such.”

“O God, the creature knows not to what end Thou hast made Him; teach him, and write in the depths of his soul that the clay must suffer itself to be shaped at the will of the potter.”

“If we love Him infinitely more than we do ourselves, we make an unconditional sacrifice of ourselves to His good pleasure, desiring only to love Him and to forget ourselves. He who thus loses his soul shall find it again with eternal life.”

“Let us endeavor to commence every enterprise with a pure view to the glory of God, continue it without distraction, and finish it without impatience.”

“When you come to be sensibly touched, the scales will fall from your eyes; and by the penetrating eyes of love you will discern that which your other eyes will never see.”