Theodore Hesburgh Quotations

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.

All of us are experts at practicing virtue at a distance.

It is easier to exemplify values than teach them.

Anyone who refuses to speak out off campus does not deserve to be listened to on campus.

My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are easy; you don't make them because they are cheap; you don't make them because they're popular; you make them because they're right.

I have a lot to be humble about, ... I'd like to say that it's the happiest day of my life, but it isn't: The happiest day of my life was when I was anointed a Catholic priest.

There's only one way to do it, ... That is to put yourself in the hands of the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother. You will see heartbreaks as well as days of great joy. There will be celebration as well as days of mourning in this church. But with the Holy Spirit behind you and the Holy Mother inspiring you, these will be great years.

It's like having a cobra in the nursery with your grandchildren. You get rid of the cobra or you won't have any grandchildren.

Once He created the Big Bang... He could have envisioned it going in billions of directions as it evolved, including billions of life-forms and billions of kinds of intelligent beings. As a theologian, I would say that the proposed search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is also a search of knowing and understanding God through his works - especially those works that most reflect Him. Finding others than ourselves would mean knowing Him better.

The greatest fallout of the space program, ... was not the close-up view of the moon, but a look at spaceship Earth from afar. For the first time in the history of humanity, we were able to see our planet for what it really is.

You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.

I'll have another beer. I'm not driving.

It didn't matter that there were actually two lakes there, ... It didn't matter that he had only $300 in his pocket. He had the gall, or the zeal, to call it not a school, or a college, but a university.

There is no conflict between science and theology, except where there is bad science or bad theology.

Voting is a civic sacrament.

I can think of no better way of redeeming this tragic world today than love and laughter. Too many of the young have forgotten how to laugh, and too many of the elders have forgotten how to love. Would not our lives be lightened if only we could all learn to laugh more easily at ourselves and to love one another?

The melting pot failed to function in one crucial area. Religions and nationalities, however different, generally learned to live together, even to grow together, in America. But color was something else. Reds were murdered like wild animals. Yellows were characterized as a peril and incarcerated en masse during World War ii for no really good reason by our most liberal president. Browns have been abused as the new slave labor on farms. The blacks, who did not come here willingly, are now, more than a century after emancipation by Lincoln, still suffering a host of slave like inequalities.

Faith is not an easy virtue; but, in the broad world of a person's total voyage through time to eternity, faith is not only a gracious companion, but an essential guide.

Bill Walton, UH Volleyball coach, after his player kept looking at him on the bench every time the ball hit the floor...Next time you look at me I'll put you on the bench where you can see me better. My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are easy; you don't make them because they are cheap; you don't make them because they are popular. You make them because they are right.

My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are cheap; you make them because they're right.

A decade after an average athlete graduates, everyone will have forgotten when and where he played. But every time he speaks, everyone will know whether he was educated.

There is no academic virtue in playing mediocre football and no academic vice in winning a game that by all odds one should lose...There has been a surrender at Notre Dame, but it is a surrender to excellence on all fronts, and in this we hope to rise above ourselves with the help of God.