Quotes by FeNelon, Francois

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

FeNelon, Francois on detail   

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

FeNelon, Francois on devotions   

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

FeNelon, Francois on failure   

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

FeNelon, Francois on friends and friendship   

"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."

FeNelon, Francois on negotiation   

"Little opportunities should be improved."

FeNelon, Francois on opportunity   

"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."

FeNelon, Francois on past   

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

FeNelon, Francois on self-examination   

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

FeNelon, Francois on spirituality   

"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."

FeNelon, Francois on books - reading   

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

FeNelon, Francois on brevity
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"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."

FeNelon, Francois on children   

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

FeNelon, Francois on complaints and complaining