Pope John XXIII Quotes

I want to throw open the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in.

Do not walk through time without leaving worthy evidence of your passage.

Prayer is the raising of the mind to God. We must always remember this. The actual words matter less.

What unites us, is much greater than what divides us.

See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little.

I live by the mercy of Jesus, to whom I owe everything and from whom I expect everything.

Never Hesitate to hold out your hand; never hesitate to accept the outstretched hand of another.

Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.

It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.

It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.

I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart.

Before everything else, fidelity to the Church: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Jesus did not found several churches, but one single Church.

Consult not your fears, but your hopes and your dreams.

... just as food is necessary to the life of the body, so good reading is necessary to the life of the soul.

A peaceful man does more good than a learned one.

Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfullfilled potential.

Whoever has a heart full of love always has something to give.

If God created shadows it was to better emphasise the light.

Relations between States, as between individuals, must be regulated not by armed force, but in accordance with...truth, justice and vigorous and sincere co-operation.

The Rosary is a magnificent and universal prayer for the needs of the Church, the nations and the entire world.

The Rosary is a school for learning true Christian perfection.

Born poor, but of honored and humble people, I am particularly proud to die poor.

The whole world is my family.

The conviction that all men are equal by reason of their natural dignity has been generally accepted. Hence racial discrimination can no longer be justified.

The feelings of my smallness and my nothingness always kept me good company.

Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.

The nations of the world are becoming more and more dependent on one another and it will not be possible to preserve a lasting peace so long as glaring economic and social imbalances persist.

Mankind is a great, an immense family... This is proved by what we feel in our hearts at Christmas.

The family is the first essential cell of human society.

It is now for the Catholic Church to bend herself to her work with calmness and generosity. It is for you to observe her with renewed and friendly attention.

The social progress, order, security and peace of each country are necessarily connected with the social progress, order, security and peace of all other countries.

Here I am at the end of the road and at the top of the heap.

Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways, women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one.

Every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity.

The true and solid peace of nations consists not in equality of arms, but in mutual trust alone.

Prudent is he who can keep silent that part of truth which may be untimely, and by not speaking it, does not spoil the truth of what he said.

Justice comes before charity.

The deposit of the faith is one thing... the way it is expressed is another.

Listen to everything, forget much, correct little.

The council now beginning rises in the Church like the daybreak, a forerunner of most splendid light.

I am made to tremble and I fear!

An angel of Paradise, no less, is always beside me, wrapped in everlasting ecstasy on his Lord. So I am ever under the gaze of an angel who protects and prays for me.

I am able to follow my own death step by step. Now I move softly towards the end.

You must know that it is by the state of the lavatory that a family is judged.

See everything: overlook a great deal: correct a little.