WIST Quotations

Fenelon, Francois -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

So long as we are full of self, we are shocked at the faults of others. Let us think often of our own sin, and we shall be lenient to the sins of others.

François Fénelon (1651-1715) French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet, writer [François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon]
(Attributed)

Fenelon, Francois -- Letter (1710-10-11) to Duchess de Montemart

Dave — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 04:13:44 +0000

God bears with imperfect beings, even when they resist his goodness. We ought to imitate this merciful patience and endurance. It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

François Fénelon (1651-1715) French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet, writer [François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon]
Letter (1710-10-11) to Duchess de Montemart
(Source)

Sometimes misattributed to Joseph Addison.

This is a shortened version, from Selections from the Writings of Fénelon, Letter 37 [tr. Follen (1829)], of a passage given in Fénelon's Letters to Women, Letter 116 [tr. Lear (1921)] as:

Sometimes even it is necessary to imitate God's dealings with souls, Who often so softens His rebuke that the person rebuked feels rather as though he were accusing himself than being accused. Anything like impatient reproof from being shocked at great faults becomes a very human correction, not that of grace.Our own imperfection makes us hasty to rebuke the imperfect, and it is a very subtle and ll-permeating self-love which cannot forgive the self-love of others. The stronger it is, the more critical the censor will be: there is nothing so irritating to a proud, self-willed mind, as the self-will of a neighbor; and another man's passions seem intolerably ridiculous and unbearable to one who is given up to his own. But he who is full oft he love of God, on the contrary, is full of forbearance, consideration, and indulgence. He waits and adapts himself, and goes softly, one step at a time: the less self-love he has, the more he tolerates that of others in order to heal it.

Fenelon, Francois -- Letter to the Comtesse de Gramont (21 Mar 1690)

Dave — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 20:17:16 +0000

While we go with the stream, we are unconscious of its rapid course; but when we begin to stem it ever so little, it makes itself felt.

François Fénelon (1651-1715) French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet, writer [François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon]
Letter to the Comtesse de Gramont (21 Mar 1690)
(Source)

Fenelon, Francois -- Letter, Undated [tr. Edmonson / Helms]

Dave — Fri, 20 May 2022 15:02:45 +0000

Humility makes us charitable toward our neighbor. Nothing will make us so generous and merciful to the faults of others as seeing our own faults.

François Fénelon (1651-1715) French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet, writer [François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon]
Letter, Undated [tr. Edmonson / Helms]
(Source)

In Robert J. Edmonson, Hal M. Helms (eds.), The Complete Fénelon, Part 2, ch. 8 (2008). Alternate translations:

Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as by self-examination thoroughly to know our own.
[Source (1895)]

Humility renders us charitable towards our neighbor; nothing will make us so tender and indulgent to the faults of others as a view of our own.
[tr. Metcalf (1853)]