John Paul II Quotes

Freedom exists for the sake of love.

Christians will want to be in the vanguard in favoring ways of life that decisively break with the exhausting and joyless frenzy of consumerism.

It is unbecoming for a cardinal to ski badly.

Our future on this planet, exposed as it is to nuclear annihilation, depends one one single factor: humanity must make a moral about-face.

The New York Marathon: a fantastic event.

In the newborn child is realized the common good of the family.

It is more necessary than ever to intensify liturgical life ... by means of an appropriate formation ... of all the faithful.

We are the sum of the Father's love for us

The lust of the flesh directs these desires [of personal union], however, to satisfaction of the body, often at the cost of a real and full communion of persons.

In Christ and through Christ man has acquired full awareness of his dignity.

The obligation to earn one's bread presumes the right to do so. A society that denies this right cannot be justified, nor can it attain social peace.

Christ called as his Apostles only men. He did this in a totally free and sovereign way.

Let me go to the house of the Father.

The modern world, a world which has experienced marvelous achievements but which seems to have lost its sense of ultimate realities and of existence itself.

Mary's role is to make Her Son Shine

Be demanding of the world around you; be demanding first of all with yourselves. Be children of God; take pride in it!

The most faithful disciples of Christ have been builders of peace, to the point of forgiving their enemies, sometimes even to the point of giving their lives for them.

What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust.

Love is a constant challenge, thrown to us by God.

Man's life comes from God: it is his image and imprint, as sharing in his breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: Man cannot do with it as he wills.

Look, I can surely say by now that I've got the antibodies to communism inside me. But when I think of consumer society, with all its tragedies, I wonder which of the two systems is better.

Only faith in Christ gives rise to a culture contrary to egotism and death.

In Christ and through Christ man has acquired full awareness of his dignity, of the heights to which he is raised, of the surpassing worth of his own humanity, and of the meaning of his existence.

Humanity looks to works of art to shed light upon its path and its destiny.

But sometimes it is necessary to do that which is too much.

Truth can never be confined to time and culture; in history it is known, but it also reaches beyond history.

There are people and nations, Mother, that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you in silence, I entrust them to you in the way that you know best.

The measure of your success will be the measure of your generosity.

When our whole life is one faith, hope, love, prayer and silence, a consecrated life always bound up in the Eucharist, then the 'urge' towards God springs.

The Church must breathe with her two lungs!

It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.

The Gospel of life must be proclaimed and human life defended in all places and all times.

In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences.

The seriousness of ecological degradation lays bare the depth of man's moral crisis... Simplicity, moderation, and discipline as well as the spirit of sacrifice must become a part of everyday life.

There are many examples of this mistaken idea of freedom, such as the elimination of human life by legalized or generally accepted abortion.

Do not drink coffee in early A.M. It will keep you awake until noon. Do not go from the slavery of the Communist regime to the slavery of consumerism.

The Church must persist in the teaching transmitted to her by Christ.

Christ assigns as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman: and simultaneously... He also assigns to every woman the dignity of every man.

In the Eucharistic Sacrifice the Church venerates the memory of Mary the ever Virgin Mother of God and the memory of Saint Joseph, because he fed Him whom the faithful must eat as the Bread of Life

All are called to holiness, and holy people alone can renew humanity.

The Rosary is my favorite prayer. A prayer so simple and so rich; from deepest heart, I exhort all to recite it.

...if desire is predominant it can deform love between man and woman and rob them both of it.

Limitation of one's freedom might seem to be something negative and unpleasant, but love makes it a positive, joyful and creative thing. Freedom exists for the sake of love.

Learning to think rigorously, so as to act rightly and to serve humanity better.

Truth can prevail only in virtue of truth itself.

See everything. Ignore a lot. Improve a little.

For by his incarnation the Son of God united himself in a certain way with every man. He labored with human hands... and loved with a human heart. Born of Mary the Virgin, he truly became one of us.

There is no need to be dismayed if love sometimes follows torturous ways. Grace has the power to make straight the paths of human love.

We began by imagining that we are giving to the; we end by realizing that they have enriched us.

The enemy of the human race...invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God's word of Salvation to the people.