Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

We're not passengers on Spaceship Earth. We're the crew.

Everyone lives downstream from someone else.

Our ethical values point one way, towards intergenerational responsibility, but our political system points another, towards the short-term horizon of the next election. We should consider introducing agents who can vote in a far-seeing and impartial way.

We must learn for the sake of one another to make better choices guided by more holistic measures of the common good we share.

For all we know, we are the only shot the universe has at intelligent self-organization. Therefore, we need to take it seriously.

We must cultivate a universal responsibility toward each other and extend it to the planet that we have to share

If I am a pure product of genetic, cultural, or class determination, I have no responsibility for my action in the world and, therefore, it is not possible for me to speak of ethics. Of course, this assumption of responsibility does not mean that we are not conditioned genetically, culturally, and socially. It means that we know ourselves to be conditioned but not determined.

I am trying to teach my children to feel a responsibility for their fellow human beings and a sense of connection with ... the world around them.

Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means.

Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.

If you look at Earth from space you see a dot, that's here. That's home. That's us. It underscores the responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

The roots of responsibility run out to the ends of the earth and we can no more isolate our consciences from world issues than we can fence off our oyster beds from the tides of the ocean.

The nature of freedom of choice is that some people will misuse their responsibility and hurt themselves in the process. We should do our best to educate them, but without diminishing choice for everyone else.

I am blind and limited. I would be a fool think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me. I must be true to my heart.

The vocation of being a 'protector' [. . .] means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us [. . .] In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts!

But what does it mean to be on God's side? I believe it starts with focusing on the common good - not just in politics, but in all the decisions we make in our personal, family, vocational, financial, communal, and, public lives. That old but always new ethic simply says we must care for more than just ourselves or our own group. We must care for our neighbor as well, and for the health of the life we share with one another. It echoes a very basic tenet of Christianity and other faiths - love your neighbor as yourself - still the most transformational ethic in history.

An educated person must learn to act justly, beginning, first of all, with his thoughts, then later in his deeds. That is what it means to be educated.

There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants.

If human life is to survive on this planet, the old dualistic worldview, with people on one side and the environment on the other, must yield to a new vision that connects us with everything else and leads us to care for and take responsibility for it.

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

Our choices at all levels-individual, community, corporate and government-affect nature. And they affect us.

Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right.

The main social responsibility for a company is to win.

The right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

There are certain promises you make that are more sacred than anything that happens in a court of law,I don't care how many Bibles you put your hand on.Some of the promises,it's true,you make to young,before you really have an understanding of what they mean.But once you've made those first promises,other promises are called for.And the thing is you can't deny the new ones without betraying the old ones.The promises get bigger,there are more people to be hurt and disappointed if you don't live up to them.Then, at some point, your called upon to make a promise to a dying man.