Quotes from Pope John XXIII

Christ's flock is made up of sheep that not only listen to their shepherd, but are also able to recognize his voice, to follow him, faithfully and with full awareness, on the pastures of eternal life.

Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams.Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in,but with what it is still possible for you to do.

Men are like wine some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.

Christian life means sacrifice.

A peaceful man does more good than a learned one.

The social progress, order, security and peace of each country are necessarily connected with the social progress, order, security and peace of all other countries.

The feelings of my smallness and my nothingness always kept me good company.

Consult not your fears, but your hopes and your dreams.

Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfullfilled potential.

It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.

Prayer is the raising of the mind to God. We must always remember this. The actual words matter less.

The Rosary is a magnificent and universal prayer for the needs of the Church, the nations and the entire world.

If God created shadows it was to better emphasise the light.

The Rosary is a school for learning true Christian perfection.

Christ's Church is, above all, the spiritual temple where every Christian knows he has his place: he knows he has it, and he is aware of his duty to keep it with honor, dignity, and grace.

The family is the first essential cell of human society.

Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.

Born poor, but of honored and humble people, I am particularly proud to die poor.

Authority is mainly a moral power; therefore, it must first call upon the conscience, that is, upon the duty that each person has to contribute willingly to the common good.

I must consider myself as the man of the cross and love the one that God gives me without thinking any further.

Every Christian must be convinced of his fundamental and vital duty of bearing witness to the truth in which he believes and the grace that has transformed him.

Do not walk through time without leaving worthy evidence of your passage.

I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart.

Whoever has a heart full of love always has something to give.