Francis of Assisi quotes

Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher, renowned for his devotion to poverty and nature. His life inspired the founding of the Franciscan Order and a movement for compassion and simplicity. He became one of the most venerated religious figures in Christianity. Here are 54 of his quotes:

Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.

Francis of Assisi

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.

Francis of Assisi

I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, he can work through anyone.

Francis of Assisi

Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.

Francis of Assisi

For it is in giving that we receive.

Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Francis of Assisi

No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.

Francis of Assisi

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.

Francis of Assisi

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

Francis of Assisi

A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.

Francis of Assisi

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

Francis of Assisi

Such was the will of the Father that his Son, blessed and glorious, whom he gave to us, and who was born for us, should by his own blood, sacrifice, and oblation, offer himself on the altar of the cross, not for himself, by whom "all things were made," but for our sins, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps.

Francis of Assisi

Grant me the treasure of sublime poverty: permit the distinctive sign of our order to be that it does not possess anything of its own beneath the sun, for the glory of your name, and that it have no other patrimony than begging.

Francis of Assisi

We must not be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but, instead, we must be simple, humble and pure.

Francis of Assisi

Be patient, because the weaknesses of the body are given to us in this world by God for the salvation of the soul. So they are of great merit when they are borne patiently.

Francis of Assisi

The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today.

Francis of Assisi

Let every man abide in the art or employment wherein he was called. And for their labor they may receive all necessary things, except money. ... Let none of the brothers, wherever he may be or whithersoever he may go, carry or receive money or coin in any manner, or cause it to be received, either for clothing, or for books, or as the price of any labor, or indeed for any reason, except on account of the manifest necessity of the sick brothers. For we ought not to have more use and esteem of money and coin than of stones. And the devil seeks to blind those who desire or value it more than stones. Let us therefore take care lest after having left all things we lose the kingdom of heaven for such a trifle. And if we should chance to find money in any place, let us no more regard it than the dust we tread under our feet.

Francis of Assisi

We should seek not so much to pray but to become prayer.

Francis of Assisi

It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.

Francis of Assisi

Lord, grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.

Francis of Assisi

Nor did demons crucify Him; it is you who have crucified Him and crucify Him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.

Francis of Assisi

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.

Francis of Assisi