Fulton J. Sheen Quotes

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.

Let none of us delude himself by supposing that honesty is always the best policy. It is not.

Citizens with a conscience are not going to ignore wrong-doing simply because they'll be destroyed for it: the conscience forbids it.

Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven.

To see the right and not to do it is cowardice.

Everybody, even me, sometimes had to compromise on something, doing things we know to be wrong, and this happens doing whatever job in the world. But a singer must have the courage of saying no.

But I think I have done right to save the vision in this way, even though I may die sooner because I did it; for I know the meaning of the vision is wise and beautiful and good; and you can see that I am only a pitiful old man after all.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

I imagine there are things I wouldn't do, but I haven't been offered those recently either.

Political courage requires clarity.

Our education gives us the skulls with which to compromise. I worry about the skill to follow our highest ideals.

I would like to be remembered as one who in the world's darkest hours kept a clean conscience and stood at the end for the ideals of American democracy.

One who aspires to greatness should read and study, pursuing the True Way with such a firm resolve that he is perfectly straightforward and open, rises above the superficialities of conventional behavior, and refuses to be satisfied with the petty or commonplace.

The dilemma of dining with the devil, of cooperation, interaction, even of the most limited kind with an unelected regime, will always remain a cross on which committed democrats, reformers, radicals and such, in any authoritarian corner of the globe, and especially in Africa, find themselves impaled …. It boils down, ultimately, to one’s personal confidence in determining the length of the spoon with which one dines with the devil and one’s ability to keep a firm hold on it.

I know and do what is right better than many big men who read.

Being a philosopher is to think, seek wisdom, and have principles that guide and influence what you do. It's to give meaning to things, find your way in the world, believe that in the end, in every instance, good will overcome evil, even if there's a bit of suffering along the way.

Conflict is always the right thing to do when it matters.

We've all done actions in our lives where we compromise what we believe in. And if we keep doing it, there's no way back, no pride to hold on to.

Revolutionary men with principles were not really different from the rest. They used their cleverness to get, in return for principles, what other men buy with their money.

You are so afraid of losing your moral sense that you are not willing to take it through anything more dangerous than a mud-puddle.

We manifest character when self-sacrifice for the sake of our principles becomes more important than compromise for the sake of popularity.

For myself I say deliberately, it is better to have a millstone tied round the neck and be thrown into the sea than to share the enterprises of those to whom the world has turned, and will turn, because they minister to its weaknesses and cover up the awful realities which it shudders to look at.

It's never the right time to take a particular stand.

A satyagrahi may not ride two horses, truth and untruth, at the same time, nor, to change the metaphor, trim his sail to catch every breeze as you do in the name of communism.