John Paul Quotes & Sayings

Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool. — Paul McCartney

If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery. — John Paul Jones

From Mary we learn to surrender to God's Will in all things. From Mary we learn to trust even when all hope seems gone. From Mary we learn to love Christ her Son and the Son of God! — Pope John Paul II

Management philosophy: Pay attention to the vital fiew and ignore the trivial many. I could go insane if I obsessed over every little details of all my companies. — John Paul DeJoria

What the Latins have done in this text (1 John v, 7) the Greeks have done to Paul (1 Tim. iii, 16). They now read, "Great is the mystery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh"; whereas all the churches for the first four or five hundred years, and the authors of all the ancient versions, Jerome as well as the rest, read, "Great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifest in the flesh." Our English version makes it yet a little stronger. It reads, "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh." — Isaac Newton

The law provides expert diagnosis of our sin problem, which is absolutely essential. But the law does not provide the cure to our sin problem. Only Jesus can save us from our sin problem. — John Paul Warren

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. — Pope John Paul II

That is the dignity of America, the reason she exists, the condition of her survival, yes, the ultimate test of her greatness: to respect every human person, especially the weak and most defenseless ones, those as yet unborn. — Pope John Paul II

The person - especially a woman - may be disillusioned by the fact that over time a man's affection turns out to be only, so to speak, a cover for desire or even for an explicit will to use. Both a woman and a man may be disillusioned by the fact that the values attributed to the beloved person turn out to be fiction. Because of the dissonance between the ideal and the reality, affective love is sometimes not only extinguished but even transformed into affective hatred. — Pope John Paul II

Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. — Pope John Paul II

The Church has a special duty to safeguard and strengthen the sacredness of the Eucharist. In our pluralistic and often deliberately secularized society, the living faith of the Christian community - a faith always aware of its rights vis-a-vis those who do not share the faith - ensures respect for this sacredness — Pope John Paul II

Depending on how you looked at it, Darren was our Mick Jagger (designated swaggering extrovert) to Simon's Keith Richards (quietly virtuosic, blatantly self-destructive). Or else Darren had been Paul McCartney (chirpily commercial) and Simon had been John Lennon (moody, introspective, possessed of quasi-mystical insights). — Austin Grossman

I have not learned a single lesson, been inspired or impacted by another person's life void of negative experiences. — John Paul Warren

I have such an admiration for John [Lennon], like most people.
But to be the guy who wrote with him, well that's enough. Right
there you could retire and go, 'Jesus I had a fantastic life. Take me, Lord.' — Paul McCartney

The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being. — Pope John Paul II

When a parliamentary or social majority decrees that it is legal, at least under certain conditions, to kill unborn human life, is it not really making a tyrannical decision with regard to the weakest and most defenseless of human beings? ... While public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which were it prohibited would cause more serious harm, it can never presume to legitimize as a right of individuals even if they are the majority of the members of society an offense against other persons caused by the disregard of so fundamental a right as the right to life. — Pope John Paul II

What is the difference between "creator" and "craftsman"? The one who creates bestows being itself, he brings something out of nothing - ex nihilo sui et subiecti, as the Latin puts it - and this, in the strict sense, is a mode of operation which belongs to the Almighty alone. The craftsman, by contrast, uses something that already exists, to which he gives form and meaning. — Pope John Paul II

Interdependence must be transformed into solidarity based upon the principle that the goods of creation are meant for all. That which human industry produces through the processing of raw materials with the contribution of work must serve equally for the good of all. — Pope John Paul II

Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person also extends to the rest of creation, which is called to join man in praising God. — Pope John Paul II

It is true that I must run a great risk; no gallant action was ever accomplished without danger. — John Paul Jones

Prayer can truly change your life. For it turns your attention away from yourself and directs your mind and your heart toward the Lord. If we look only at ourselves, with our own limitations and sins, we quickly give way to sadness and discouragement. But if we keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, then our hearts are filled with hope, our minds are washed n the light of truth, and we come to know the fullness of the Gospel with all is promise and life. — Pope John Paul II

Brilliant intellects do not matriculate to study under someone dumber than themselves. Paul recognized Jesus as master of the intellect, above him in every way. — John Ortberg

The Apostle Paul's antidote for wimpy Christians is weighty doctrine ... everything that exists - including evil - is ordained by a holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly. We don't make God. He makes us. We don't decide what he is going to be like. He decides what he is going to be like. He decides what we are going to be like. He created the universe, and it has the meaning he gives it, not the meaning we give it. If we give it a meaning different from his, we are fools ... our eternal joy and strength and holiness depend on the solidity of this worldview putting strong fiber into the spine of our faith. Wimpy worldviews make wimpy Christians. And wimpy Christians won't survive the days ahead. — John Piper

We commit ourselves to the journey toward reconciliation because we believe it is right-even when we are not sure, as John Paul says, how it will progress or end. We believe that walking down the path to peace offers a way better than violence and an instrument more powerful than force to conduct the affairs of humankind. We pray that others will join us.
-Harold — John Paul Lederach

The shadow of someone's greatness is not a good place to dwell. Being the next someone else pales into insignificance against being the first you. — John Paul Bernett

Paul and I know each other on a lot of different levels that very few people know about. — John Lennon

Loving ourselves so much, we are naturally led to enlarge our own merits, to play down our transgressions, to judge others by different standards from those used to judge ourselves. Enlarged merits? They are described by your fellow-writer Trilussa:

The little snail of Vainglory
Who had crawled up an obelisk
Looked at its slimy trail and said:
I see I'll leave my mark on History.

This is the way we are, dear Twain; even a bit of slime, if it is our own, and because it is our own, makes us boast, gives us a swelled head! — Pope John Paul I

Here you had John McCain and Lindsey Graham in a very principled way standing up and defending Barack Obama. You had people like Gene Robinson and a lot of other liberals, who said, and this I personally agree with, however flawed Rand Paul was as a messenger, we need a debate about this. The administration has not been forthcoming enough about its drone policy. — E. J. Dionne

I had another reason for seeking Him, for trying to espy His face, a professional one. God and literature are conflated in my mind. Why this is, I'm not sure. Perhaps because great books seem heavensent. Perhaps because I know that each nove is a puny but very valiant attempt at godlike behavior. Perhaps because there is no difference between the finest poetry and most transcendent mysticism. Perhaps because writers like Thomas Merton, who are able to enter the realm of the spirit and come away with fine, lucid prose. Perhaps because of more secular writers, like John Steinbeck, whose every passage, it seems to me, peals with religiousity and faith. It once occured to me that literature - all art really - is either talking to people about God, or talking to God about people. — Paul Quarrington

When the commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor, the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof that the pig is obscene. — John Paul Stevens

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds actually wasn't meant to say LSD It was a drawing that John's son brought home from school Lucy was a kid in his school. — Paul McCartney

You may have your diploma from a seminary, ordained by a Bishop, or commissioned by a denomination but ONLY God can "mark" a man. — John Paul Warren

I like to live well and I feel good about it because I know how much we give back. There's plenty for my family, now let's take care of the rest. — John Paul DeJoria

Love the family! Defend and promote it as the basic cell of human
society; nurture it as the prime sanctuary of life. Give great care to the
preparation of engaged couples and be close to young married couples, so
that they will be for their children and the whole community an eloquent
testimony of God's love. — Pope John Paul II

The world [is] tired of ideology [and] is opening itself to the truth. The time has come when the splendor of this truth has begun anew to illuminate the darkness of human existence. — Pope John Paul II

Well, anyway, she certainly was not worried that John-Paul was having an affair. Definitely not. It wasn't a possibility. Not even a remote possibility. He wouldn't have time for an affair! When would he fit it in? He did travel a bit. He could fit in an affair then. — Liane Moriarty

Life should be lived more from the heart and less from the head. — John Paul Warren

I have taken much pains to know everything that is esteemed worth knowing amongst men; but with all my reading, nothing now remains to comfort me at the close of this life but this passage of St. Paul: "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." To this I cleave, and herein do I find rest. — John Selden

Those who are used to a clergy take very lightly those who do not have a formal divinity degree: like Paul and Peter and James and John. — Dallin H. Oaks

Sacred scripture wishes simply to declare that the world was created by God, and in order to teach this truth it expressed itself in terms of the cosmology in use at the time of the writer. Any other teaching about the origin and makeup of the universe is so alien to the intentions of the Bible, which does not wish to teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven. — Pope John Paul II

Of course God's way of speaking to us is different from our way, but he does speak to us, and his words are intelligible; they are interior factors closely linked to the unremitting work of our conscience. — Saint John Paul II

A good question has many answers. — John Paul Caponigro

Look, I can surely say by now that I've got the antibodies to communism inside me. But when I think of consumer society, with all its tragedies, I wonder which of the two systems is better. — Pope John Paul II

Another name for peace is development. — Pope John Paul II

Take heart young people! Christ is calling you and the world awaits you! Remember the Kingdom of God needs your generous and complete dedication. — Pope John Paul II

Inquiry is more important than answers, for it is the questions we ask and the way in which we ask them that defines us. — John Paul Caponigro

John-Paul did not have the requisite organizational abilities to handle bigamy. He would have slipped up long ago. Turned up at the wrong house. Called one of his wives by the wrong name. He'd be constantly leaving his possessions at the other place. — Liane Moriarty

The last person to be beatified by Pope John Paul II was Mother Teresa of Calcutta in 2003. — Chris Matthews

Supposedly nobody outside the group knew there was a group. Of course we all knew that wasn't true. High school was like the little clear plastic tunnels that Paul's hamsters lived in: you could run a long way but never get out, and always, everyone could see you. — John Barnes

The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. — Pope John Paul II

We see the world through our experience. — John Paul Caponigro

One of my favorite things I read was John Steinbeck's journals while he was writing 'East of Eden,' which was so cool. — Paul Dano

I seriously don't understand how men came to rule the world, she'd said to her sister, Bridget, this morning, after she'd told her about how John-Paul had lost his rental car keys in Chicago. It had driven Cecilia bananas seeing that text message from him. There was nothing she could do! This type of thing was always happening to John-Paul. Last time he went overseas he'd left his laptop in a cab. The man lost things constantly. Wallets, phones, keys, his wedding ring. His possessions just slid right off him. — Liane Moriarty

Prayer finds its source in God's holiness and it is at the same time our response to this holiness. — Pope John Paul II

Humankind, which discovers its capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through its own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of things that are. People think that they can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to their wills, as though the earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which human beings can indeed develop but must not betray. — Pope John Paul II

Prayer joined to sacrifice constitutes the most powerful force in human history. — Pope John Paul II

I would rather live short and right then long and wrong. — John Paul Warren

For us Catholics, John Paul II will be remembered as a traveling Pope ... and we should also remember he preached world peace. When the United States invaded Iraq, for example, John Paul II said it was an illegal and immoral act. — Hugo Chavez

Whenever a person is the object of your activity, remember that you may not treat that person as only the means to an end, as in instrument, but must allow for the fact that he or she, too, has or at least should have, distinct personal ends. — Pope John Paul II

I believe I love my guitar more than the others love theirs. For John and Paul, songwriting is pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they're making up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar for a whole evening. I'm fascinated by new sounds I can get from different instruments I try out. I'm not sure that makes me particularly musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I'll be satisfied. — George Harrison

I always got the feeling with John Paul that if he could have narrowed down the people he met and blessed those he loved the most, they would not be cardinals, princes, or congressman, but nuns from obscure convents and Down syndrome children, especially the latter. Because they have suffered, and because in some serious and amazing way the love of God seems more immediately available to them. Everyone else gets themselves tied up in ambition and ideas and bustle, all the great distractions, but the modest and unwell are so often unusually open to this message: God loves us, his love is all around us, he made us to love him and be happy — Peggy Noonan

The desire for knowledge is so great and it works in such a way that the human heart, despite its experience of insurmountable limitation, yearns for the infinite riches which lie beyond, knowing that there is to be found the satisfying answer to every question as yet unanswered. — Pope John Paul II

Many Christians and Christian leaders have been neutralized by the love of money and materialism. The homage paid to affluence becomes a burden that saps our energy as well as our love for God and other people ... Like Jesus and Paul, we can learn to be content with what we have, living modestly in order that we may give liberally to the work of the kingdom and to meet the needs of others. — John Wimber

Men of God are not just born, they are formed — John Paul Warren

Each individual in fact has moral responsibility for the acts which he personally performs; no one can be exempted from this responsibility, and on the basis of it everyone will be judged by God himself. — Pope John Paul II

The hope is that papal calls for a New Pentecost, which go back to St. John XXIII, and papal calls for a New Evangelization, which go back to Vatican II and especially to St. John Paul II, can come together. Pope Francis' vision is to bring together the reality of a New Pentecost with the urgency of a New Evangelization. — Ralph Martin

Jesus said when you pray say "Our Father which art in heaven." He did not say "Our Judge which art in heaven". #grace #gospel — John Paul Warren

The film industry has become a universal medium exercising a profound influence on the development of people's attitudes and choices, and possessing a remarkable ability to influence public opinion and culture across all social and political frontiers. — Pope John Paul II

If men could menstruate ... clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much.... Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammed Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields - "For Those Light Bachelor Days." Gloria Steinem — Sawyer King

Those who devote themselves to the study of Sacred Scripture should always remember that the various hermeneutical approaches have their own philosophical underpinnings, which need to be carefully evaluated before they are applied to the sacred texts. — Pope John Paul II

I am not distracted by wrong because I am attracted to right. — John Paul Warren

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. — Pope John Paul II

How beautiful is the family that recites the Rosary every evening. — Pope John Paul II

There is no need to be dismayed if love sometimes follows torturous ways.
Grace has the power to make straight the paths of human love. — Pope John Paul II

But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). God and His Word, in essence or essential nature, is truth (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalms 5:5; 33:4; 105:5; 119:151, 160; John 1:17; 14:6; 16:13). Many Christians consider all truth as God's truth, yet they will look to other sources beyond the Bible. However, the only reliable source of truth is God's inerrant Word, the Bible (Psalm 18:30; John 8:31-32; 2 Timothy 3:16-17). All other sources are fallible and cannot be used as the measure for truth. — Paul Smith

If we work together, we can do everything, if we just watch each other, we can do nothing — John Paul Santiago

You made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. In this creative restlessness beats and pulsates what is most deeply human - the search for truth, the insatiable need for the good, hunger for freedom, nostalgia for the beautiful, and the voice of conscience. — Pope John Paul II

We wish to continue in following up the legacy of the Second Vatican Council whose wise regulations have still to be led to their fulfilment, being careful that a push, generous perhaps, but unduly timed, does not detract from the content and meaning of the council, and on the other hand being careful and reined and timid efforts do not slow up the magnificent drive of renewal and of life. — Pope John Paul I

In 1989, Eugene Peniston and Paul Kulkosky used a specific neurofeedback protocol for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They facilitated twilight states of learning by rewarding both alpha and theta. Their protocol has come to be called deep-states training (Robbins, 2000a). Guided visualizations and skin temperature (ST) training were also part of the protocol design. The first landmark study included a small population of Vietnam veterans. Two years later Peniston and Kulkosky studied the effect of neurofeedback training with veterans who had dual diagnoses of alcoholism and PTSD. Both studies had positive outcomes (Peniston & Kulkosky, 1999). They — John N. Demos

He was always saying, 'I wonder what Paul is doing.' When John and I were together, and this is about a week or two before our relationship ended, I remember him saying, 'Do you think I should write with Paul again?' I said, 'Absolutely. You should because you want to. The two of you as solo performers are good, but together you can't be beaten. — May Pang

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. — Pope John Paul II

The Gospel lives in conversation with culture, and if the Church holds back from the culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the threshold of the communication and information revolution now taking place. — Pope John Paul II

God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to the nations: We are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and, asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant. — Pope John Paul II

Although I have lived through much darkness, I have seen enough evidence to be unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of the young ... Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! 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. — Pope John Paul II

I'm not good at comparing and contrasting. I take what's in front of me for what it is, although I guess there's something about Paul's realistic writing that is like Cassavetes. — John Cassavetes

All photographs are about light. The great majority of photographs record light as a way of describing objects in space. A few photographs are less about objects and more about the space that contains them. Still fewer photographs are about light itself. — John Paul Caponigro

Repentance (from the Greek metanoia) is the mind itself changed and transformed. It is the supernatural conquering the natural. It is the assumption of the spirit of Christ according to the words of St. Paul: "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ — John A. Kane

It must kill George Bush that John McCain is the most popular and Beloved Republican in America. — Paul Begala

It is the duty of every man to uphold the dignity of every woman. — Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul would be more popular if he called himself Pope John Paul George and Ringo. — Paul Krassner

John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam in the prison camps took torture to avoid saying. — Paul Galanti

May the death penalty, an unworthy punishment still used in some countries, be abolished throughout the world. — Pope John Paul II

After all, a district judge who gives harsh sentences to Yankees fans and lenient sentences to Red Sox fans would not be acting reasonably even if her procedural rulings were impeccable. — John Paul Stevens

Actually John, Paul Rutherford, and Trevor Watts, and several other rather well known English jazz musicians had got their training by joining the Air Force, which was a pretty standard way for people to get some kind of musical education in those days. — Evan Parker

The goal and target of our life is He, the Christ who awaits us
each one singly and altogether
to lead us across the boundaries of time to the eternal embrace of the God who loves us. — Pope John Paul II

The life-changing encounters that John Quincy Adams made as an adolescent on his own in Stockholm began with a friendship he struck up at a bookstore. — Paul C. Nagel

At the (record company) meeting Paul just kept mithering on about what we were going to do, so in the end I just said, 'I think you're daft. I want a divorce.' — John Lennon

I've never actually seen a tribute band. I can't really get a hold of the concept. To me, it's old material. I have no interest in it. I want to see what's coming now. — John Paul Jones

There is a growing threat to the environment, to the vegetation, animals, water and air. Sacred Scripture hands us the image of Cain who rejects his responsibility: 'Am I my brother's keeper?' The Bible shows the human person as his brother's keeper and the guardian of creation which has been entrusted to him. — Pope John Paul II

Christ is the measure of every age. — Pope John Paul II