One of the most beloved popes in history among Catholics and non-Catholics alike,
John Paul captured the world's attention and admiration during his 26-year pontificate.
Despite illness and infirmity, he tirelessly preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
He defended life in all its forms, wrote prolifically on Catholic topics such as
the Eucharist and the rosary, pleaded for peace in the world and created more Roman
Catholic saints than any other pope. It is said that he was the most recognized man
in the world and he is by far the most widely travelled pope in history.
(1920-2005)
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.
~ Pope John Paul II
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
~ Pope John Paul II
As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
~ Pope 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
War is a defeat for humanity.
~ Pope John Paul II
The unworthy successor of Peter who desires to benefit from the immeasurable wealth of Christ
feels the great need of your assistance, your prayers, your sacrifice, and he most humbly asks this of you.
~ Pope John Paul II
I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.
~ Pope John Paul II
An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.
~ Pope John Paul II
Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it.
~ Pope John Paul II
Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.
~ Pope John Paul II
The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does
not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.
~ Pope John Paul II
I hope to have communion with the people, that is the most important thing.
~ Pope John Paul II
I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother.
I consider it my duty to be with my compatriots in this sublime and difficult moment.
~ Pope John Paul II
You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.
~ Pope John Paul II
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.
~ Pope John Paul II
Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness
that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.
~ Pope John Paul II
From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can survive.
~ Pope John Paul II
You are priests, not social or political leaders. Let us not be under the illusion that we are serving the
Gospel through an exaggerated interest in the wide field of temporal problems.
~ Pope John Paul II
Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the
natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire.
~ Pope John Paul II
Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility
to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.
~ Pope John Paul II
Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.
~ Pope John Paul II
Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it.
~ Pope John Paul II
The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.
~ Pope John Paul II
The future starts today, not tomorrow.
~ Pope John Paul II
Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
~ Pope John Paul II
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.
~ Pope John Paul II
The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the
street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.
~ Pope John Paul II
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?
~ Pope John Paul II
The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the
Church. a duty and a proof of the priest's inner maturity; it is the expression of his personal dignity.
~ Pope John Paul II
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.
~ Pope John Paul II
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.
~ Pope John Paul II
When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men
and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.
~ Pope John Paul II
You will reciprocally promise love, loyalty and matrimonial honesty. We only want for you this day
that these words constitute the principle of your entire life and that with the help of divine grace
you will observe these solemn vows that today, before God, you formulate.
~ Pope John Paul II
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.
~ Pope John Paul II
Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, once a distant
outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ's vineyard.
~ Pope John Paul II
Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimately futile.
~ Pope John Paul II
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.
~ Pope John Paul II
American poet, philosopher, lecturer, and essayist of 19th century America.
An isolated and self-sufficient individual deeply involved in study of his social relationships, anti-slavery activity and
focus on his mature ethical thought.
His essays can be appreciated for their imaginative, paradoxical, accumulative and analogical rhetoric. This great man had a
strong influence on American poetry, his connections with the later philosophical movement of pragmatism, and his contributions
to the theory of democracy are remembered.
(1803-1882)
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
~ Carl Sagan
The difference between what the most and the least learned people
know is inexpressibly trivial in relation to that which is unknown.
~ Albert Einstein
Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.
~ Edwin Hubble
