Francis de Sales Quotes

While thou livest keep a good tongue in thy head.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

Ask God for temp'rance. That's th' appliance only Which your disease requires.

Unless the habit leads to happiness the best habit is to contract none.

Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.

The wise who control their body, who control their tongue, the wise who control their mind, are indeed well controlled.

I've always had a very extreme personality, which gets me into major trouble, I'm always all or nothing, and I don't know the world "balance." I'm desperately trying to learn it because I think as you get older it becomes very important.

I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower.

There are few instances of the exercise of particular virtues which seem harder to attain to, or which appear more amiable and engaging in themselves, than those of moderation and the forgiveness of injuries.

It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.

Moderation is represented as a virtue in order to restrain the ambition of great men, and to console those of a meaner condition in their lesser merit and fortune.

Restrain thy mind, and let mildness ever attend thy tongue.

Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one tongue. Draw your own moral.

My goal has always been to slow down as slowly as possible. It's as simple as that.

A sparing tongue is the greatest treasure among men.

Keep skid chains on your tongue. Say less than you think. Cultivate a pleasant voice. How you say it is often more important than what you say.

Temperance is love in training.

piety is like garlic: a little goes a long way.

Do not be eager for things above.

Temperance is the nurse of chastity.

My experience through life has convinced me that, while moderation and temperance in all things are commendable and beneficial, abstinence from spirituous liquors is the best safeguard of morals and health.

Moderation, the noblest gift of Heaven.

Nothing is gained except by sacrifice.... Do not degrade it to the level of the brutes.... Make yourselves decent men! ... Be chaste and pure! ... There is no other way. Did Christ find any other way?

No doubt alcohol, tobacco, and so forth, are things that a saint must avoid; but sainthood is also a thing that human beings must avoid.

But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites; and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.