The world calls for, and expects from us, simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility, detachment, and self-sacrifice. Without this mark of holiness, our word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man.
— Pope Paul VI
The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune.
In youth, the days are short and the years are long. In old age, the years are short and days long.
Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people.
Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp's nest.
Never reach out your hand unless you're willing to extend an arm.
No more war! Never again war! If you wish to be brothers, drop your weapons.
Liturgy is like a strong tree whose beauty is derived from the continuous renewal of its leaves, but whose strength comes from the old trunk, with solid roots in the ground.
You must strive to multiply bread so that it suffices for the tables of mankind, and not rather favor an artificial control of birth, which would be irrational, in order to diminish the number of guests at the banquet of life.
We believe with all the strength of our spirit that mankind has a supreme, primary and irreplaceable need which can be satisfied only through Jesus Christ, the first-born among men, the head of the new humanity, in whom each individual reaches full self-realization.
If you want peace work for justice.
All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today.
Physics does not change the nature of the world it studies, and no science of behavior can change the essential nature of man, even though both sciences yield technologies with a vast power to manipulate the subject matters.
A dimple on the chin, the devil within.
Nothing makes one feel so strong as a call for help.
We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice.
Of all human activities, man's listening to God is the supreme act of his reasoning and will.
Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy.
Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.
Are there memories left that are safe from the clutches of phony anniversaries?
Never give advice in a crowd.
The work of art, just like any fragment of human life considered in its deepest meaning, seems to me devoid of value if it does not offer the hardness, the rigidity, the regularity, the luster on every interior and exterior facet, of the crystal.
I met a hundred men going to Delhi, and every one is my brother.
The Eucharistic mystery stands at the heart and center of the liturgy since it is the fount of life by which we are cleansed and strengthened to live not for ourselves but for God and to be united in love among ourselves.
Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see.
