Pope John Paul II was a great leader and a source of inspiration for many people. He had a lot of wisdom to share, and his quotes are still relevant today. Here are some of my favorite Pope John Paul II quotes.
Pope John Paul II was one of the most influential and well-known popes in history. He was born in Poland in 1920 and was ordained as a priest in 1946. He became the head of the Catholic Church in 1978 and served until his death in 2005.
John Paul II was known for his strong stances on social issues and his dedication to helping the poor. He was also a prolific writer and speaker, and his travels throughout the world made him one of the most widely recognized figures in the world.
60 Pope John Paul II Quotes
- “The worst prison would be a closed heart.”
2. “Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
3. “A person’s rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use.”
4. “It is the duty of every man to uphold the dignity of every woman.”
5. “Friendship, as has been said, consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person’s good.”
6. “Learning to think rigorously, so as to act rightly and to serve humanity better.”
7. “Love demands a personal commitment to the will of God.”
8. “Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.”
9. “Self-control is not needed because the body is evil—the truth is just the opposite. The body should be controlled with honor because it is worthy of honor.”
10. “A democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.”
Pope John Paul II Quotes On Faith and Hope
11. “The cross means there is no shipwreck without hope; there is no dark without dawn; nor storm without haven.”
12. “Men are like wine-some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.”
13. “The human being is single, unique, and unrepeatable, someone thought of and chosen from eternity, someone called and identified by name”
14. “The future starts today, not tomorrow.”
15. “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.”
16. “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,”
17. “Prayer is the voice of all those who have no voice.”
18. “Know what you are talking about.”
19. “Truth can prevail only in virtue of truth itself.”
20. “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
Pope John Paul II Quotes About Life
21. “Without wonder, men and women would lapse into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life which is genuinely personal.”
22. “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.”
23. “None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands.”
24. “Faith and Reason are like two wings of the human spirit by which is soars to the truth.”
25. “Treating a person as a means to an end, and an end moreover which in this case is pleasure, the maximization of pleasure, will always stand in the way of love.”
26. “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.”
27. “The more you give of yourself, the more you will find yourself.”
28. “Faith is man’s response to God, who reveals himself and gives himself to man, at the same time bringing man a superabundant light as he searches for the ultimate meaning of his life.”
29. “The ethos of redemption is realized in self-mastery, by means of temperance, that is, continence of desires.”
30. “A person is an entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love.”
Famous Pope John Paul II Quotes
31. “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus.”
32. “Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love.”
33. “Family must be the first school of peace”
34. “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.”
35. “Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you”
36. “Man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, can fully find himself only through a sincere gift of himself.”
37. “Those who love much succeed in overcoming their fear.”
38. “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.”
39. “Love between man and woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self-denial.”
40. “God allows man to learn His supernatural ends, but the decision to strive towards an end, the choice of course, is left to man’s free will. God does not redeem man against his will.”
Inspirational Pope John Paul II Quotes
41. “The rights of God and man stand or fall together.”
42. “It is not enough to long for a person as a good for oneself, one must also, and above all, long for that person’s good.”
43. “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.”
44. “Knowledge must then lead to education in self-control.”
45. “Faith is not opposed to reason”
46. “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.”
47. “Freedom experienced in solidarity is expressed in action for justice in the political and social fields, and directs the gaze towards the freedom of others. There is no freedom without solidarity.”
48. “The greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and personal responsibility.”
49. “Christ is the measure of every age.”
50. “The interior life is the spiritual life. It focuses on truth and the good. It”
51. “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God”
52. “Life is entrusted to man as a treasure which must not be squandered, as a talent which must be used well.”
53. “According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.”
54. “Every act of true love towards a human being bears witness to and perfects the spiritual fecundity of the family, since it is an act of obedience to the deep inner dynamism of love as self-giving to others.”
55. “Suffering is a call to conversion: it reminds us of our frailty and vulnerability.”
56. “Tell the people the truth will set you free.”
57. “Following Christ, the Church seeks the truth, which is not always the same as the majority opinion. She listens to conscience and not to power, and in this way she defends the poor and the downtrodden.”
58. “The ethos of redemption is realied in self-mastery, by means of temperance, that is, continence of desires.”
59. “God is existence, yet people say that he does not exist.”
60. “Truthfulness keeps to the just mean between what ought to be expressed and what ought to be kept secret: it entails honesty and discretion”