Top 85 Quotes & Sayings by Pope Paul VI

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.

Nothing makes one feel so strong as a call for help.

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.

The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune.

A dimple on the chin, the devil within.

If you want peace work for justice.

I met a hundred men going to Delhi, and every one is my brother.

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.

Anger is as a stone cast into a wasp's nest.

Never give advice in a crowd.

Of all human activities, man's listening to God is the supreme act of his reasoning and will.

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.

Technological society has succeeded in multiplying the opportunities for pleasure, but it has great difficulty in generating joy.

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.

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.

Are there memories left that are safe from the clutches of phony anniversaries?

Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see.

Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people.

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.

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.

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.

No more war! Never again war! If you wish to be brothers, drop your weapons.

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.

In youth, the days are short and the years are long. In old age, the years are short and days long.

Never reach out your hand unless you're willing to extend an arm.

The international trading system was devised by the rich to suit their needs; it ignores those of the poor.

Perhaps the Lord has called me and preserved me for this service not because I am particularly fit for it, or so that I can govern and rescue the Church from her present difficulties, but so that I can suffer something for the Church, and in that way it will be clear that he, and no other, is her guide and saviour

This pious practice, by which the Blessed Virgin Mary is honored and the Christian people enriched with spiritual gifts, gladdens and consoles us. Mary remains ever the path that leads to Christ. Every encounter with her can only result in an encounter with Christ himself

The unique and indivisible existence of the Lord glorious in heaven, is not multiplied, but is rendered present by the sacrament in the many places on earth where Mass is celebrated. And this existence remains present, after the sacrifice, in the Blessed Sacrament, which is, in the tabernacle, the living heart of each of our churches.

No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law.

If you want peace, work for justice.

Idleness or boredom has no place in the life of a Christian.

We must see to it that enthusiasm for the future does not give rise to contempt for the past.

The hungry nations of the world cry out to the peoples blessed with abundance. And the Church, cut to the quick by this cry, asks each and every man to hear his brother's plea and answer it lovingly.

In youth the days are short and the years are long. In old age the years are short and day's long.

The Catholic Church holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing His apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for His Church.

I met a hundred men going to Delhi and everyone is my brother.

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... Without this mark of holiness, our word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man. It risks being vain and sterile.

This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. It is beauty, like truth, which brings joy to the heart of man and is that precious fruit which resists the year and tear of time, which unites generations and makes them share things in admiration.

If evils increase, the devotion of the People of God should also increase.

Through some crack the smoke of satan has entered into the Church of God.

The task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church. It is a task and mission which the vast and profound changes of present-day society make all the more urgent. Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize.

True humanism points the way toward God and acknowledges the task to which we are called, the task which offers us the real meaning of human life. Man is not the ultimate measure of man. Man becomes truly man only by passing beyond himself.

Peace is not merely the absence of war. Nor can it be reduced solely to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies. Nor is it brought about by dictatorship. Instead, it is rightly and appropriately called "an enterprise of justice" (Is. 32:7). Peace results from that order structured into human society by its divine founder, and actualized by men as they thirst after ever greater justice.

We would also like you to know that the Church recognizes the riches of the Islamic faith - a faith that binds us to the one God.

Without repeating everything that we have already mentioned, it is appropriate first of all to emphasize the following point: for the Church, the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one's neighbor with limitless zeal. As we said recently to a group of lay people, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.

Excessive economic, social and cultural inequalities among peoples arouse tensions and conflicts, and are a danger to peace.

Failing to be there when a man wants her is a woman's greatest sin, except to be there when he doesn't want her.

Peace is not simply the absence of warfare.

Two conditions render difficult this historic situation of mankind: It is full of tremendously deadly armament, and it has not progressed morally as much as it has scientifically and technically.

The Mass is the most perfect form of prayer.

In America, you are not required to offer food to the hungry or shelter the homeless. There is no ordinance forcing you to visit the lonely, or comfort the infirmed. No where in the Constitution does it say you have to provide clothing to the poor. In fact, one of the nicest things about living here in America, is that you really don't have to do anything for anybody. But when you do, you give meaning and provide soul to the concept of community...and develop a sense of purpose to something greater than one's self.

The command to the Twelve to go out and proclaim the Good News is also valid for all Christians, though in a different way.... the Good News of the kingdom which is coming and which has begun is meant for all people of all times. Those who have received the Good News and who have been gathered by it into the community of salvation can and must communicate and spread it.

It is called the real presence, not in an exclusive sense, as though other forms of presence were not real, but by reason of its excellence. It is the substantial presence by which Christ is made present without doubt, whole and entire, God and man.

No more war, war never again! Peace, it is peace which must guide the destinies of people and of all mankind.

You also realize, Venerable Brothers, that the Eucharist is reserved in churches or oratories to serve as the spiritual center of a religious community or a parish community, indeed of the whole Church and the whole of mankind, since it contains, beneath the veil of the species, Christ the invisible Head of the Church, the Redeemer of the world, the center of all hearts, 'by whom all things are and by whom we exist'.

Christ did not found an abstract religion, a mere school of religious thought. He setup a community of apostles, of teachers, with the task of spreading His message and so giving rise to a society of believers: His Church. He promised the Spirit of truth to His Church and then sent Him.

Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.

If you believe in peace it is possible. If it is possible it is a duty.

Lord, to whom should we go? Thy words are the words of eternal life.