Pope John Paul II
Faced with today's problems and disappointments, many people will try to escape from their responsibility. Escape in selfishness, escape in sexual pleasure, escape in drugs, escape in violence, escape in indifference and cynical attitudes. I propose to you the option of love, which is the opposite of escape."
"This people draws its origin from Abraham, our father in faith The very people that received from God the commandment Thou shalt not kill itself experienced in a special measure what is meant by killing. It is not permissible for anyone to pass by this inscription with indifference."
"Science develops best when its concepts and conclusions are integrated into the broader human culture and its concerns for ultimate meaning and value. Scientists cannot, therefore, hold themselves entirely aloof from the sorts of issues dealt with by philosophers and theologians. By devoting to these issues something of the energy and care they give to their research in science, they can help others realize more fully the human potentialities of their discoveries. They can also come to appreciate for themselves that these discoveries cannot be a genuine substitute for knowledge of the truly ultimate. Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish."
"The Jewish religion is not extrinsic to us but in a certain way intrinsic to our own religion. With Judaism, therefore, we have a relationship which we do not have with any other religion. You are our dearly beloved brothers, and, in a certain way, it can be said that you are our elder brothers."
"All human activity takes place within a culture and interacts with culture. For an adequate formation of a culture, the involvement of the whole man is required, whereby he exercises his creativity, intelligence, and knowledge of the world and of people. Furthermore, he displays his capacity for self-control, personal sacrifice, solidarity and readiness to promote the common good."
"Man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence, because it consists in sharing the very life of God. The loftiness of this supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phase."
"You applaud, even though you don't understand me."
"Never again war. Never again hatred and intolerance."
"Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece."
"God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to the nations: We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and, asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant."
"The twentieth century was the great century of Christian martyrs, and this is true both in the Catholic Church and in other Churches and ecclesial communities."
"Could I forget that the event [Mehmet Ali Ağca’s assassination attempt] in St. Peter’s Square took place on the day and at the hour when the first appearance of the Mother of Christ to the poor little pesants has been remembered for over sixty years at Fátima, Portugal? For in everything that happened to me on that very day, I felt that extraordinary motherly protection and care, which turned out to be stronger than the deadly bullet."
"I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you."
"I am happy and you should be happy too. Do not weep. Let us pray together with joy."
"As in the time of the swords and of the spears,so today,in the time of the missiles,before the weapon,the heart of the man kills"
This word is the final word before his death
"Do not be afraid to open your heart to Jesus... I'm begging you, please do not be afraid."
Anything done for another is done for oneself.
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can survive.
Man always travels along precipices. His truest obligation is to keep his balance.
Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it.
Do not lose heart! The steeper the road the faster it rises toward ever wider horizons.
The future starts today, not tomorrow.
Darkness can only be scattered by light, hatred can only be conquered by love. The worst prison would be a closed heart.
One discovers the common values of every culture, capable of uniting and not dividing.
The Holy Land needs bridges, not walls.
As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family - a domestic church.
To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.
The fear of making permanent commitments can change the mutual love of husband and wife into two loves of self-two loves existing side by side, until they end in separation.
The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish.
The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.
Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.
The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to receive the arms race from us as a necessary inheritance?
Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.
Violence and war can never resolve the problems of men.
Variant: Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.
War is a defeat for humanity.
Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimately futile.
War should belong to the tragic past, to history: it should find no place on humanity's agenda for the future.
Man matures through work. Which inspires him to difficult good.
Work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons.
I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.
I hope to have communion with the people, that is the most important thing.
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