Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

Every night I go over what I did in the day, in ethical or moral terms. Have I treated people properly? Did I tell the truth?

What I do is between me and the Lord, to examine and possibly alter the state of grace in which I live, and thereby the state of grace of anybody who listens.

Conscience is the mirror of our souls, which represents the errors of our lives in their full shape.

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.

I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual. But I don't believe in things like guilt.

I never did anything I'm really ashamed of.

Conscience, the power of conscience, can unearth all kinds of things.

Anxiety is the beginning of conscience, which is the parent of the soul but is not compatible with innocence.

The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.

A conscience without God is like a court without a judge.

People have the right to say what they want, but as long as I can go to bed at night and look myself in the mirror, I'll be all right.

We will not, on the altar of money, mortgage our conscience, mortgage our faith, mortgage our salvation.

There's nothing I've done which I'm ashamed of or I thought was actually bad.

Some people may believe that their conscience is enough to guide them not to lie, be deceitful or do the other things God has commanded us not to do. I disagree.

I'm just going to say it: I'm pro-guilt. Guilt is good. Guilt helps us stay on track because it's about our behavior. It occurs when we compare something we've done - or failed to do - with our personal values.

Jesus Christ tells us that a man cannot be wrong if he argues towards God from what he finds best in himself.

In my religion it's actually better to know you're doing wrong and try to improve that wrong than to think philosophically that what you're doing is right and in fact it is wrong.

I don't think people who are bad people think they're bad people.

I was baptised a Catholic and, although I'm not a churchgoer now, I do have a strong sense of the integrity of doing what you believe to be true.

Looking back over the years, I realize the Bible isn't magic, but it is corrective; it isn't an answer book, it is a living book; it isn't a fix-it book, it is relationship book. When I confront God's word, I am confronted; when I read God's word, it reads me; when I seek God's presence, He seeks me.

Life is not just about profit and loss. One should follow one's conscience and listen to the voice of one's soul.

Basically, Aristotle believed that every time you behaved unkind and immorally - performing actions your soul was not proud of - you tarnished your soul. The worst shape your soul became in, the worst shape your mood and spirit.

I'm not saying I'm perfect. But I'm someone who analyses and reflects on what I do, whether it's in keeping with the ethics that I talk about in public. That's how I've been all my life.

The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.

Conscience is what? It is putting together a moral act and a moral ideal, and measuring the act by the ideal. It is putting this moral act which you do alongside the eternal laws of God, and seeing how it stands by those laws of God.