Franciscans Quotes

One day if I do go to heaven ... I'll look around and say, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco. ~ Herb Caen

Nearly everybody in San Francisco writes poetry. Few San Franciscans would admit this, but most of them would rather like to have their productions accidentally discovered. ~ Stella Benson

From Roger Bacon, the 13th century Franciscan who pioneered the scientific method, to George Lemaitre, the 20th century Belgian priest who first developed a mathematical foundation for the 'Big Bang,' people of faith have played a key role in advancing scientific understanding. ~ Kenneth R. Miller

I would love to be a Franciscan brother. I'm just not sure I have the courage to do it. ~ Rich Mullins

Stephen came on deck reflecting with satisfaction upon his sloth, now a parlour-boarder with the Irish Franciscans at Rio, and a secret drinker of the altar-wine. ~ Patrick O'Brian

I have been all things unholy. If God can work through me, He can work through anyone. ~ Francis Of Assisi

Like so many other San Franciscans whose paycheck isn't tied to an app or a private bus ride to the Peninsula, you wait to see what tomorrow brings and try to stay steadfast. ~ Oscar Villalon

There is nothing to prove and nothing to protect. I am who I am and it's enough. ~ Richard Rohr

The year is 1327. Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where extraordinary things are happening under the cover of night. A spectacular popular and critical success The Name of the Rose is not only a narrative of a murder investigation but an astonishing chronicle of the Middle Ages. ~ Umberto Eco

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. ~ Francis Of Assisi

A year ago, I was at a dinner in Amsterdam when the question came up of whether each of us loved his or her country. The German shuddered, the Dutch were equivocal, the Brit said he was "comfortable" with Britain, the expatriate American said no. And I said yes. Driving across the arid lands, the red lands, I wondered what it was I loved. the places, the sagebrush basins, the rivers digging themselves deep canyons through arid lands, the incomparable cloud formations of summer monsoons, the way the underside of clouds turns the same blue as the underside of a great blue heron's wings when the storm is about to break.

Beyond that, for anything you can say about the United States, you can also say the opposite: we're rootless except we're also the Hopi, who haven't moved in several centuries; we're violent except we're also the Franciscans nonviolently resisting nucelar weapons out here; we're consumers except the West is studded with visionary environmentalists...and the landscape of the West seems like the stage on which such dramas are played out, a space without boundaries, in which anything can be realized, a moral ground, out here where your shadow can stretch hundreds of feet just before sunset, where you loom large, and lonely. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Where there is injury let me sow pardon. ~ Francis Of Assisi

My aim is to institute perpetual adoration," he said, for this is the "the most important activity. ~ Maximilian Kolbe

It is the fashion in many parts of the United States to sneer at Chicago. This is notably the case in San Francisco. Most San Franciscans say they dislike Chicago.It is true that there is much that is unlovely there. To the impatient traveler hastening from New York to San Francisco the enforced stop at Chicago is distasteful. For Chicago has contrived things with such skill that it is difficult to cross the continent without stopping within her gates. Everybody must pay toll. The pilgrim must pause, even thought he do not unpack his wallet. He must stop at least for a bath and a bite. You find it difficult to go around Chicago. Chicago will not let you pass her without stopping. ~ Jerome Hart

One of the Franciscans says later, "A monk should own nothing but his harp"; meaning, I suppose, that he should value nothing but his song, the song with which it was his business as a minstrel to serenade every castle and cottage, the song of the joy of the Creator in His creation and the beauty of the brotherhood of men. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Dialogue with Catholics and other nonevangelical Christians offered some correction to the Church Growth movement's fixation on cultural accommodation and baptism rates. However - save for those few who converted - evangelicals attracted to other Christian traditions have made those traditions their own. They assemble do-it-yourself liturgies from a hodgepodge of monastic prayers and mystics' visions. They lionize medieval dissenters - Celtic monks, or renegade Franciscans - but don't understand their broader Catholic context. Without quite realizing what they have done, evangelicals often use these ancient teachings and practices to confirm, rather than challenge, their own assumptions. History becomes a sidekick to one's twenty-first-century journey with Jesus. ~ Molly Worthen

As Mayor of San Francisco, I will work hard to ensure that, in the event of natural or man-made disasters, San Franciscans are prepared and our City is protected. ~ Gavin Newsom

In a quiet Franciscan monastery kind and silent monks looked after me. After many weeks I was discharged. Unfit for further service. ~ Ernst Toller

To go upon the Franciscans Hackney (i.e. on foot). ~ George Herbert

Another significant factor that increased pressure on the Jews was the rise of the mendicant orders of preaching friars, the Dominicans and the Franciscans. The Dominicans in particular were to become leaders in the campaign against the Jews. Saint Dominic probably never imagined that his order would initiate the Spanish Inquisition and oversee the public immolation of heretics. The only torment he advocated was self-directed. ~ Jeffrey Gorsky

But living in uncertain times does not mean San Franciscans must live in fear. ~ Gavin Newsom

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

Throughout history, the Franciscan School has typically been a minority position inside of the Roman Catholic and larger Christian tradition, yet it has never been condemned or considered heretical - in fact, quite the opposite. It just emphasized different teachings of Jesus, new perspectives and behaviors, and focused on the full and final implications of the Incarnation of God in Christ. For Franciscans, the incarnation was not just about Jesus but was manifested everywhere once you learned how to see spiritually. As Francis said, "The whole world is our cloister"! ~ Richard Rohr

Every time God forgives us, God is saying that God's own rules do not matter as much as the relationship that God wants to create with us. ~ Richard Rohr

I've had such extremes in my life. From being this kind of wild kid, to one year studying to be a Franciscan priest at the seminary ... I was very frustrated. ~ Tom Cruise

San Franciscans know we live in the most beautiful city in the world, a jewel on the edge of the Golden Gate. ~ Gavin Newsom