Fulton J. Sheen Quotes

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.

People have the power to redeem the work of fools.

Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism.

It's now our responsibility to prove to ourselves, to other nations, and especially to our children and our grandchildren, that politics is full of fun; politics has some wisdom. Politics is freedom.

Public business … must always be done by somebody…. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.

Possession properly has two faces, two aspects: we all have a right to private property, but this is accompanied by our responsibility for its righteous use. These two things (which should be inseparable) are frequently divided today. Everyone admits that the farmer who own a horse is obligated to feed and care for it, but in the case of stocks and bonds, we often forget that the same principle should prevail.

Man is certainly free, but he is responsible for this freedom before God as before men. This responsibility is inevitably moral. In order of this morality, to be free is to protect the freedom of others and their dignities.

Other human beings have a right to peace and happiness that is equal to our own; therefore we have a responsibility to help those in need.

When people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility.

I believe that life is valuable, even when it is unwanted, even when it is physically imperfect. I believe our society has a responsibility to defend the vulnerable and the weak. And I believe our nation should set a goal that unborn children should be welcomed in life and protected in law.

The miracle is that some have stepped out of the rags of the Republic's definition to assume the great burden and glory of their humanity and their responsibility for one another. It is an extraordinary achievement to be trapped in the dungeon of color and to dare to shake down its walls and to step out of it leaving the jailkeeper in the rubble.

The destiny of human rights is in the hands of all our citizens in all our communities.

There is a denial of the value of the individual. Christianity affirms the value of each individual soul. Nazism denies it. The individual is sacrificed to the idol of the German Leader, German State or the German race. The ordinary citizen is allowed to hear and think only as the rulers decree.

My mom told me, 'don't grow up too quickly; once you're an adult, you're an adult.'

Our task is to build cultural fortresses to protect our emerging nativeness. They must be strong enough to hold at bay the powers of consumerism, the powers of greed and envy and pride. One of the most effective ways for this to come about would be for our universities to assume the awesome responsibility to both validate and educate those who want to be homecomers -- not necessarily to go home but to go someplace and dig in and begin the long search and experiment to become native.

The consciousness of having discharged that duty which we owe to our country is superior to all other considerations.

Because the people of New Hampshire take their responsibilities as citizens of the Republic seriously, they keep it interesting for candidates who, believe it or not, can get a little tired of the mannered, predictable, and unimaginative qualities that typically afflict modern political campaigns.

Of a truth, Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a conscience of what must be and what may be. . . .

Let's gear our advertising to sell goods, but let's recognize also that advertising has a broad social responsibility.

At the heart of all that civilization has meant and developed is 'community' - the mutually cooperative and voluntary venture of man to assume a semblance of responsibility for his brother.

The time has come to accept in our hearts and minds that with freedom comes responsibility.

Business is correct to defend its right to act in order to produce a vigorous and engaging prosperity. But it is wrong if it forgets that this freedom can only be experienced within the discipline of social responsibility.

Indifference towards those in need is not acceptable for a Christian.

It is for us to discharge the high duties that devolve on us, and carry our race onward. To be no better, no wiser, no greater than the past is to be little and foolish and bad; it is to misapply noble means, to sacrifice glorious opportunities for the performance of sublime deeds, to become cumberers of the ground.

A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.