S. > S.'s Quotes

“The future starts today, not tomorrow.”
― Pope John Paul II

“It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.

It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”
― Pope John Paul II

“Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.”
― Pope John Paul II

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
― Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła)

“Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
― Pope John Paul II

“Know what you are talking about.”
― Pope John Paul II

“The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.”
― Pope John Paul II

“Faith and Reason are like two wings of the human spirit by which it soars to the truth.”
― Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio: On the Relationship Between Faith and Reason

“I plead with you--never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.”
― Pope John Paul II, Pope John Paul II: In My Own Words

“True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.”
― Pope John Paul II

“The worst prison would be a closed heart.”
― Pope John Paul II

“A person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use.”
― Pope John Paul II, Love and Responsibility

“As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
― John Paul II

“Do not be afraid to take a chance on peace, to teach peace, to live peace...Peace will be the last word of history.”
― John Paul II

“Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence.”
― Pope John Paul II

“It is the duty of every man to uphold the dignity of every woman.”
― Pope John Paul II

“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.”
― John Paul II

“Ask yourselves, young people, about the love of Christ. Acknowledge His voice resounding in the temple of your heart. Return His bright and penetrating glance which opens the paths of your life to the horizons of the Church’s mission. It is a taxing mission, today more than ever, to teach men the truth about themselves, about their end, their destiny, and to show faithful souls the unspeakable riches of the love of Christ. Do not be afraid of the radicalness of His demands, because Jesus, who loved us first, is prepared to give Himself to you, as well as asking of you. If He asks much of you, it is because He knows you can give much.”
― Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła), The Meaning of Vocation

“Love consists of a commitment which limits one's freedom - it is a giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one's freedom on behalf of another.”
― John Paul II, Love and Responsibility

“Love between man and woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self-denial.”
― John Paul II, Love and Responsibility

“Friendship, as has been said, consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person's good.”
― Pope John Paul II, Love and Responsibility

“The Gospel lives in conversation with culture, and if the Church holds back from the culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the threshold of the communication and information revolution now taking place.”
― Pope John Paul II

“There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.”
― Pope John Paul II

“He was alone in his wonderment,
amoung creatures incapable of wonder
--for them it was enough to exist and go their way.”
― Pope John Paul II

“Merry Christmas!”
― Pope John Paul II

“ This is no time to be ashamed of the Gospel. It is the time to preach it from the rooftops. Do not be afraid to break out of comfortable and routine modes of living in order to take up the challenge of making Christ known in the modern metropolis. ”
― Pope John Paul II

“Take away from love the fullness of self surrender, the completeness of personal commitment, and what remains will be a total denial and negation of it.”
― Pope John Paul II, Love and Responsibility

“Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remains standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.”
― Pope John Paul II

“The ethos of redemption is realied in self-mastery, by means of temperance, that is, continence of desires.”
― Pope John Paul II, Blessed Are the Pure of Heart

“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.”
― John Paul II, Love and Responsibility