Frederick William Faber

19th-century British hymn writer, Catholic priest, and theologian

Frederick William Faber (June 28, 1814September 26, 1863) was an English hymn writer and theologian.

Holiness is an unselfing of ourselves.

Quotes edit

  • No kind action ever stopped with itself. Fecundity belongs to it in its own right. One kind action leads to another. By one we commit ourselves to more than one. Our example is followed. The single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make fresh trees, and the rapidity of the growth is equal to its extent. But this fertility is not confined to ourselves, or to others who may be kind to the same person to whom we have been kind. It is chiefly to be found in the person himself whom we have benefited. This is the greatest work which kindness does to others, that it makes them kind themselves.
    • "On Kindness in General", Spiritual Conferences (1860).
  • See! he sinks
    Without a word; and his ensanguined bier
    Is vacant in the west, while far and near
    Behold! each coward shadow eastward shrinks,
    Thou dost not strive, O sun, nor dost thou cry
    Amid thy cloud-built streets.
    • The Rosary and Other Poems, On the Ramparts at Angoulême; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 769-70.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) edit

Quotes reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
  • The world is growing old;
    Who would not be at rest and free
    Where love is never cold?
    • Paradise.
  • O Paradise! O Paradise!
    Who doth not crave for rest?
    Who would not seek the happy land
    Where they that love are blest?
    • Paradise.
  • Hark! Hark! my soul, angelic songs are swelling
    O’er earth’s green fields and ocean’s wave-beat shore;
    How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling
    Of that new life when sin shall be no more.
    • The Pilgrims of the Night.
  • O majesty unspeakable and dread!
    Wert thou less mighty than Thou art,
    Thou wert, O Lord, too great for our belief,
    Too little for our heart.
    • The Greatness of God.
  • The sea, unmated creature, tired and lone,
    Makes on its desolate sands eternal moan.
    • The Sorrowful World.
  • Labour itself is but a sorrowful song,
    The protest of the weak against the strong.
    • The Sorrowful World.
  • For right is right, since God is God,
    And right the day must win;
    To doubt would be disloyalty,
    To falter would be sin.
    • The Right Must Win. Compare: "That right was right, and there he would abide", George Crabbe, Tales, Tale xv, "The Squire and the Priest".

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) edit

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

  • I have no cares, O blessed Will!
    For all my cares are Thine;
    I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou
    Hast made Thy triumph mine.
    • P. 44.
  • Dear Lord! in all our loneliest pains
    Thou hast the largest share,
    And that which is unbearable,
    Tis Thine, not ours to bear.
    • P. 99.
  • Is the scrupulous attention I am paying to the government of my tongue at all proportioned to that tremendous truth revealed through St. James, that if I do not bridle my tongue, all my religion is vain?
    • P. 215.
  • Faith is letting down our nets into the transparent deeps at the Divine command, not knowing what we shall take.
    • P. 238.
  • What another being is life when we have found out our Father ; and if we work, it is beneath His eye, and if we play, it is in the light and encouragement of His smile. Earth's sunshine is heaven's radiance, and the stars of night as if the beginning of the beatific vision; so soft, so sweet, so gentle, so reposeful, so almost infinite have all things become, because we have found our Father in our God.
    • P. 260.
  • Holiness is an unselfing of ourselves.
    • P. 314.
  • Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning.
    • P. 363.
  • Labor is sweet, for Thou hast toiled,
    And care is light, for Thou hast cared;
    Let not our works with self be soiled,
    Nor in unsimple ways ensnared.
    Through life's long day and death's dark night,
    O gentle Jesus! be our light.
    • P. 369.
  • Love's secret is to be always doing things for God, and not to mind because they are such little ones.
    • P. 386.
  • If our love were but more simple,
    We should take Him at His word;
    And our lives would be all sunshine
    In the sweetness of the Lord.
    • P. 545.
  • There is seldom a line of glory written upon the earth's face, but a line of suffering runs parallel with it; and they that read the lustrous syllables of the one, and stoop not to decipher the spotted and worn inscription of the other, get the.least half of the lesson earth has to give.
    • P. 567.

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