Frederick William Faber Quotes

Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning; and these three last have never converted any.

The great fact is, that life is a service. The only question is, "Whom will we serve?

Every moment of resistance to temptation is a victory.

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.

There is a grace of kind listening, as well as a grace of kind speaking.

Poor human nature cannot do everything; and kindness is too often left uncultivated, because men do not sufficiently understand its value. Men may be charitable, yet not kind; merciful, yet not kind; self-denying, yet not kind. If they would add a little common kindness to their uncommon graces, they would convert ten where they now only abate the prejudice of one.

Now are the days, of humblest prayer, When consciences to God lie bare, And mercy most delights to spare. Oh hearken when we cry. Now is the season, wisely long, Of sadder thought and graver song, When ailing souls grow well and strong. Oh hearken when we cry. The feast of penance! Oh so bright, With true conversion's heavenly light, Like sunrise after stormy night! Oh hearken when we cry. Oh happy time of blessed tears, Of surer hopes, of chast'ning fears, Undoing all our evil years. Oh hearken when we cry. Chastise us with Thy fear; Yet, Father! in the multitude Of Thy compassions, hear!

There are no disappointments to those whose wills are buried in the will of God.

Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory.

Kind words are the music of the world. They have a power which seems to be beyond natural causes, as if they were some angel's song which had lost its way and come to earth.

We must remember that if all the manifestly good men were on one side and all the manifestly bad men on the other, there would be no danger of anyone, least of all the elect, being deceived by lying wonders. It is the good men, good once, we must hope good still, who are to do the work of Anti-Christ and so sadly to crucify the Lord afresh.... Bear in mind this feature of the last days, that this deceitfulness arises from good men being on the wrong side.

Many a friendship - long, loyal, and self-sacrificing - rested at first upon no thicker a foundation than a kind word.

Deep theology is the best fuel of devotion; it readily catches fire, and once kindled it burns long.

He draws us to Himself by grace, by example, by power, by lovingness, by beauty, by pardon, and above all by the Blessed Sacrament. Every one who has had anything to do with ministering to souls has seen the power which Jesus has. Talent is not needed. Eloquence is comparatively unattractive. Learning is often beside the mark. Controversy simply repels... All the attraction of the Church is in Jesus, and His chief attraction is the Blessed Sacrament

Holiness is an unselfing of ourselves.

Kind words are the music of the world.

Many there are who, while they bear the name of Christians, are totally unacquainted with the power of their divine religion. But for their crimes the Gospel is in no wise answerable. Christianity is with them a geographical, not a descriptive, appellation.

Each hour comes with some little faggot of God's will fastened upon its back.

For right is right, since God is God and right the day must win. To doubt would be disloyalty, to falter would be sin.

For right is right, since God is God.

We must have passed through life unobservantly, if we have never perceived that a man is very much himself what he thinks of others.

Exactness in little things is a wonderful source of cheerfulness.

We strain hardest for things which are almost but not quite within our reach.

If our love were but more simple, We should take Him at His word; And our lives would be all sunshine In the sweetness of the Lord.

The buried talent is the sunken rock on which most lives strike and founder.

Small things are best: Grief and unrest To rank and wealth are given; But little things On little wings Bear little souls to Heaven.

Labour itself is but a sorrowful song,The protest of the weak against the strong.

O majesty unspeakable and dread!Wert thou less mighty than Thou art,Thou wert, O Lord, too great for our belief,Too little for our heart.

Eternity will not be long enough to learn all he is, or to praise him for all he has done, but then, that matters not; for we shall be always with him, and we desire nothing more.

The Blessed Sacrament is the magnet of souls. There is a mutual attraction between Jesus and the souls of men. Mary drew Him down from heaven. Our nature attracted Him rather than the nature of angels. Our misery caused Him to stoop to our lowness. Even our sins had a sort of attraction for the abundance of His mercy and the predilection of His grace. Our repentance wins Him to us. Our love makes earth a paradise to Him; and our souls lure Him as gold lures the miser, with irresistible fascination

They always win who side with God.

Love's secret is always to be doing things for God, and not to mind because they are such very little ones.

We can exaggerate about many things; but we can never exaggerate our obligation to Jesus, or the compassionate abundance of the love of Jesus to us. All our lives long we might talk of Jesus, and yet we should never come to an end of the sweet things that might be said of Him.

Ye Heavens, how sang they in your courts, How sang the angelic choir that day, When from his tomb the imprisoned God, Like the strong sunrise, broke away?

Is the scrupulous attention I am paying to the government of my tongue at all proportioned to that tremendous truth revealed through St. James, that if I do not bridle my tongue, all my religion is vain?

He (God) never comes to those who do not wait.

We cannot resist the conviction that this world is for us only the porch of another and more magnificent temple of the Creator's majesty.

Happiness is a great power of holiness. Thus, kind words, by their power of producing happiness, have also a power of producing holiness, and so of winning men to God.

Kind words produce happiness. How often have we ourselves been made happy by kind words, in a manner and to an extent which we are unable to explain!

Good is that darkening of our lives, Which only God can brighten; But better still that hopeless load, Which none but God can lighten.

God always fills in all hearts all the room which is left Him there.

For children is there any happiness which is not also noise?

There is a great deal of self-will in the world, but very little genuine independence of character.

Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is the queen of all devotions. It is the central devotion of the Church. All others gather round it, and group themselves there as satellites; for others celebrate his mysteries; this is Himself. It is the universal devotion. No one can be without it, in order to be a Christian. How can a man be a Christian who does not worship the living Presence of Christ?

The music of the Gospel leads us home.

The world is growing old;Who would not be at rest and freeWhere love is never cold?

There's a wideness in God's mercy Like the wideness of the sea Oratory Hymns.

Now this spirit is admirably mortified by the exercise of patience. It involves also a continual practice of the presence of God; for we may be come upon at any moment for an almost heroic display of good temper. It is a short road to unselfishness; for nothing is left to self. All that seems to belong most intimately to self, to be self's private property, such as time, home, and rest, are invaded by these continual trials of patience.

Nobody is kind to only one person at once, but to many persons in one.

It has always seemed to me that a love of natural objects, and the depth, as well as exuberance and refinement of mind, produced by an intelligent delight in scenery, are elements of the first importance in the education of the young.