Inspirational Quotes by Francois Fenelon
“I warn you again: beware of philosophers. They will trap you and do you more harm than you know how to do them good. Their discussions go on forever, yet they never come to the simple truth. Intellectuals are unwisely curious; they are link conquerors who destroy the world without possessing it. Solomon himself testifies to the vanity of endless reasoning. Never study spiritual subjects unless God prompts you to. And do not study more than you can use. Study with a prayerful spirit. God is both Truth and Love. You can only know the truth to the degree that you love. Love the truth and you will understand the truth. If you do not love, you do not know love. Love with a humble heart and the Truth will love you. You will know what philosophers cannot know and even what philosophers do not want to know. I hope that you will obtain the knowledge that is kept for babes and the simple-minded. Such knowledge is hid from the wise and prudent. (Matthew 6.25)”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Seeking Heart
“Think little and do much. If you are not careful, you will acquire so much knowledge that you will need another lifetime to put it all into practice.”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Seeking Heart
“Live in peace without worrying about the future. Unnecessary worrying and imagining the worst possible scenario will strangle your faith. God alone knows what will happen to you. You really don’t even own the present moment, for even this belongs to God.”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Seeking Heart
“Often, when you suffer, it is the life of your self-nature that causes you pain. When you are dead, you do not suffer. If you were completely dead to your old nature, you would no longer feel many of the pains that now bother you.”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Seeking Heart
“I warn you again: beware of philosophers. They will trap you and do you more harm than you know how to do them good. Their discussions go on forever, yet they never come to the simple truth. Intellectuals are unwisely curious; they are like conquerors who destroy the world without possessing it. Solomon himself testifies to the vanity of endless reasoning. Never study spiritual subjects unless God prompts you to. And do not study more than you can use. Study with a prayerful spirit. God is both Truth and Love. You can only know the truth to the degree that you love. Love the truth and you will understand the truth. If you do not love, you do not know love. Love with a humble heart and the Truth will love you. You will know what philosophers cannot know and even what philosophers do not want to know. I hope that you will obtain the knowledge that is kept for babes and the simple-minded. Such knowledge is hid from the wise and prudent. (Matthew 6.25)”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Seeking Heart
“The greater our own self-love, the more severe critics we will be. Nothing is so offensive to a haughty, sensitive self-conceit as the self-conceit of others.”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Complete Fenelon
“We have nothing but our wills only; all the rest belongs elsewhere. Disease removes life and health; riches make to themselves wings; intellectual talents depend upon the state of the body. The only thing that really belongs to us is our will, and it is of this, therefore, that God is especially jealous, for He gave it to us, not that we should retain it, but that we should return it to Him, whole as we received it, and without the slightest reservation.”
“Do not let your natural activity consume you amid the irksome details around you. You cannot take too many pains to subdue”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Complete Fenelon
“THE DANGERS OF HUMAN PRAISE Showing sorrow for sin and undergoing other humiliating circumstances are far more profitable than success. You know that your troubles made you find out what you never knew before about yourself, and I am afraid that the authority, the success, and the admiration that have now come your way will make you self-satisfied. Such self-satisfaction will mar the best-ordered life, because it is incompatible with humility. We can be humble only so long as we give attention to all our own infirmities. The consciousness of these should be predominant; the soul should feel burdened by them and groan under them, and that groaning should be as a perpetual prayer to be set free from “its bondage to decay,” and admitted into the “glorious freedom of the children of God.” 3 Overwhelmed by its own faults, the soul should feel it deserves no deliverance by the great mercy of Jesus Christ. Woe to the soul that is self-satisfied, that treats God’s gifts as its own merits, and forgets what is due to God! Set apart regular seasons for reading and prayer. Involve yourself in outward matters when it is really necessary, and attend more to softening the harshness of your judgment, to restraining your temper, and to humbling your mind than to upholding your opinion even when it is right. Finally, humble yourself whenever you find that an undue interest in the affairs of others has led you to forget the one all-important matter of yourself: eternity.”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Complete Fenelon
“It is false humility to believe ourselves unworthy of God’s goodness and to not dare to look to him with trust.”
― Francois Fenelon ,
from The Complete Fenelon
“A man deeply concerned in an affair of great importance, that should take up all the attention of his mind, might pass several days in a room treating about his concerns without taking notice of the proportions of the chamber, the ornaments of the chimney, and the pictures about him, all which objects would continually be before his eyes, and yet none of them make any impression upon him. In this manner it is that men spend their lives; everything offers God to their sight, and yet they see it nowhere. “He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and nevertheless the world did not know Him”
“A man who lives without reflecting thinks only on the parts of matter that are near him, or have any relation to his wants. He only looks upon the earth as on the floor of his chamber, and on the sun that lights him in the daytime as on the candle that lights him in the night. His thoughts are confined within the place he inhabits. On the contrary, a man who is used to contemplate and reflect carries his looks further, and curiously considers the almost infinite abysses that surround him on all sides.”
“It is a small matter, say they; true, but it is of amazing consequence to you; it is a matter that you love well enough to refuse to give it up to God; a matter which you sneer at in words, that you may have a pretence to retain it; a small matter, but one that you withhold from your Maker, and which will prove your ruin.”
“Doğru davranıp davranmadığını tekrar bir düşün istersen, çünkü en iyi seçenek korkuya neden olmayandır.s.34”
“Idées développée dans Phédon : 1° jugement des âmes après la mort 2° système de punitions graduées en même temps système d'expiation et de purification 3° retour des âmes à la vie sous des formes plus ou moins parfaites”
topics: philosophy
“Car si le plaisir et la douleur ne se rencontrent jamais en même temps, quand on prend l'un, il faut accepter l'autre, comme si un lien naturel les rendait inséparables.”
topics: philosophy
“Mais ceux qui sont reconnus avoir passé leur dans la sainteté, ceux-là sont délivrés de ces lieux terrestres, comme d'une prison, et s'en vont là-haut, dans l'habitation pure au-dessus de la terre.”
topics: philosophy
“Ayez soin de vous, ainsi vous me rendrez service, à moi, à ma famille, à vous-mêmes, alors même que vous ne me promettriez rien présentement”
topics: philosophy
“And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both?”
“He aquí por qué no tenemos tiempo para pensar en la filosofía; y el mayor de nuestros males consiste en que en el acto de tener tiempo y ponernos a meditar, de repente interviene el cuerpo en nuestras indagaciones, nos embaraza, nos turba y no nos deja discernir la verdad.”
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Francois Fenelon (1651 - 1715)
He was inducted into the Acadmie Francaise in 1693 and named Archbishop of Cambrai in 1695. During his time as the educator and teacher of the Duke, Fenelon wrote several entertaining and educational works, including the extensive novel Les Aventures de Telemaque, fils d'Ulysse (The Adventures of Telemachus, son of Ulysses), which depicted the ideal of a wise king. When this novel began circulating anonymously among the court, having been fragmentarily published in 1699 without his knowledge, Louis XIV, who saw many criticisms of his absolutistic style of rule in Telemaque, stopped the printing and banned Fenelon from court. Fenelon then retreated to his bishopric in Cambrai, where he remained active writing theological and political treatises until his death on January 17, 1715.In Church history, Fenelon is known especially for his part in the Quietism debate with his earlier patron Bossuet. In his work Explication des maximes des Saints sur la vie interieure (Explanation of the Adages of the Saints on the Inner Life) in 1697, he defended Madame du Guyon, the main representative of Quietistic mysticism. He provided proof that her "heretical" teachings could also be seen in recognized saints. In 1697, Fenelon called on the pope for a decision in the Quietism debate. After long advisement, the Pope banned the Explication in 1699. Fenelon complied with the pope's decision immediately and allowed the remaining copies of his book to be destroyed.
Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fenelon, more commonly known as Francois Fenelon, was a French Roman Catholic theologian, poet and writer. He today is remembered mostly as one of the main advocates of quietism and as the author of The Adventures of Telemachus, a scabrous attack on the French monarchy, first published in 1699.
Francois Fenelon (specifically Francois de Salignac de la Motte-Fenelon) was born on August 6, 1651, at Fenelon Castle in Perigord. Fenelon studied at the seminary Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where he was ordained as a priest. Fenelon published his pedagogical work Traite de l'education des filles (Treatise on the Education of Girls) in 1681, which brought him much attention, not only in France, but abroad as well. At this time, he met Jacques Benigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, who soon became his patron and through whose influence Fenelon was contracted by Louis XIV to carry out the re-conversion of the Hugenots in the provinces of Saintonge and Poitou in 1686 and was appointed in 1689 as educator of his grandson and potential successor, the Duc de Bourgogne. Because of this position, he gained much influence at the court.
He was inducted into the Academie Francaise in 1693 and named Archbishop of Cambrai in 1695. During his time as the educator and teacher of the Duke, Fenelon wrote several entertaining and educational works, including the extensive novel Les Aventures de Telemaque, fils d'Ulysse (The Adventures of Telemachus, son of Ulysses), which depicted the ideal of a wise king. When this novel began circulating anonymously among the court, having been fragmentarily published in 1699 without his knowledge, Louis XIV, who saw many criticisms of his absolutistic style of rule in Telemaque, stopped the printing and banned Fenelon from court. Fenelon then retreated to his bishopric in Cambrai, where he remained active writing theological and political treatises until his death on January 17, 1715.
In Church history, Fenelon is known especially for his part in the Quietism debate with his earlier patron Bossuet. In his work Explication des maximes des Saints sur la vie interieure (Explanation of the Adages of the Saints on the Inner Life) in 1697, he defended Madame du Guyon, the main representative of Quietistic mysticism. He provided proof that her "heretical" teachings could also be seen in recognized saints. In 1697, Fenelon called on the pope for a decision in the Quietism debate. After long advisement, the Pope banned the Explication in 1699. Fenelon complied with the pope's decision immediately and allowed the remaining copies of his book to be destroyed.