The Wisdom of the Saints: An Anthology Book

Ranging over 2,000 years of Church history, this unique anthology brings together hundreds of aphoristic sayings from the writings and recorded words of saints both famous and obscure. From the literary polish of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists, to the cry of the martyr on the scaffold, these quotations cover a huge array of themes—joy, death, faith and hope, folly—and vary in tone from the intimacy of personal letters to the exhortative fervor of sermons preached to the thousands. The sayings include diary notations, lists of personal resolutions, naive remarks of saintly children who intuited their own destiny (later recalled and assigned a deep significance), and the half-legendary utterances of early wonder-working saints of Ireland or the misty northern forests. Included are African and Japanese saints as well as Europeans. Despite the diversity of the individuals represented—hermits and Popes, the urbane and the gaunt, the sensible and the passionately foolish—the book uncovers more harmony of thought and fundamental agreement than one would ever expect. On virtually all of the themes by which the collection is organized, the outlines of a "saintly consensus" are suggested. Above all, this collection brings the saints vividly to life. It reminds us that the saints were real people, with a range of temperaments and personalities—not a group of museum figures carved in marble.

This unique anthology presents hundreds of aphoristic sayings from the writings and recorded literary statements of both famous and obscure saints.