Quotes from Pope John Paul II

Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore, in addition to causing horrendous damage, they prove ultimately futile.

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.

St. Joseph was a just man, a tireless worker, the upright guardian of those entrusted to his care. May he always guard, protect and enlighten families.

Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love.

There is nothing more man needs than Divine Mercy - that love which is benevolent, which is compassionate, which raises man above his weakness to the infinite heights to the holiness of God.

Each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.

The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly must with his unrest, uncertainty, and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ.

It is the duty of every man to uphold the dignity of every woman.

The sacraments infuse holiness into the terrain of man's humanity: they penetrate the soul and body, the femininity and masculinity of the personal subject, with the power of holiness.

Without wonder, men and women would lapse into deadening routine and little by little would become incapable of a life which is genuinely personal.

Reason and faith cannot be separated without diminishing the capacity of men and women to know themselves, the world and God in an appropriate way.

If you want peace, work for justice. If you want justice, defend life. If you want life, embrace truth.

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.

Have no fear of moving into the unknown.

It's better to cry than be angry, because anger hurts others while tears flow silently through the soul and cleans the heart.

Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.

The purpose of art is nothing less than the upliftment of the human spirit.

Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the message and translate it into colors, shapes and sounds which nourish the intuition of those who look and listen.

Work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons

The Church's teaching on ownership diverges radically from collectivism as proclaimed by Marxism and "rigid" capitalism. The primacy of the person over things joint ownership of the means of work.

Man matures through work which inspires him to difficult good.

The greatness of work is inside man.

Beauty is the vocation bestowed on the artist by the Creator in the gift of artistic talent.

All human activity takes place within a culture and interacts with culture.