Pope Paul VI Quotes

It is the great glory as well as the great threat of science that everything which is in principle possible can be done if the intention to do it is sufficiently resolute.

The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

Scientific man is already on the moon, and yet we are still living with the moral concepts of Homer.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

I fear … that morals do not of necessity advance hand in hand with the sciences.

There are lots of things that science will enable us to do that we shouldn’t do.

And yet humanity is so not evolved that how can you expect anything absolutely major to happen? Look how long, we move ahead in technology, how much do we move ahead in morality or emotion? We move ahead so minimally, minimally, minimally.

We cannot but think there is something like a fallacy in Mr. Buckle's theory that the advance of mankind is necessarily in the direction of science, and not in that of morals.

Progress is a farce because man's head and hand have created wonders that stun the imagination, but his heart does not keep step and his morals undo all that his mind has wrought.

In thousands of years there has been no advance in public morals, in philosophy, in religion or in politics, but the advance in business has been the greatest miracle the world has ever known.

We must work passionately and indefatigably to bridge the gulf between our scientific progress and our moral progress. One of the great problems of mankind is that we suffer from a poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually.

There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.

Through scientific discovery and technological innovation, we enlist the forces of the natural world to solve many of the uniquely human problems we face - feeding and providing energy to agrowing population, improving human health, taking responsibility for protecting the environment and the global ecosystem, and ensuring our own Nation's security. Scientific discoveries inspire and enrich us, teaching us about the mysteries of life and the nature of the world.

We can assume that most people, most of the time, are moral creatures. But imagine that this morality is like a gearshift that at times gets pushed into neutral. When that happens, morality is disengaged. If the car happens to be on an incline, car and driver move precipitously downhill. It is then the nature of the circumstances that determines outcomes, not the driver's skills or intentions.

[The PlayStation 2 is a] historic, a mass-market appliance that fundamentally changes society in the way the printing press did.

Civilization has run on ahead of the soul of man, and is producing faster than he can think and give thanks.

If I were required to guess off-hand, and without collusion with higher minds, what is the bottom cause of the amazing material and intellectual advancement of the last fifty years, I should guess that it was the modern-born and previously non-existent disposition on the part of men to believe that a new idea can have value.

Speaking as just simply an American who cares about the economic health of our country, I see one of the surest ways to bring wealth and prosperity to the country is to innovate in science and technology.

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.

We live in a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants, in a world that has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. We have solved the mystery of the atom and forgotten the lessons of the Sermon on the Mount. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about dying than we know about living.

As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will neccessarily guide the future course of science.

Man is an animal with primary instincts of survival. Consequently his ingenuity has developed first and his soul afterwards. The progress of science is far ahead of man's ethical behavior.

We have a very foolish notion in Western countries that progress delivers freedom. But progress doesn't necessarily bring moral virtue.

Vivisection is a social evil because if it advances human knowledge, it does so at the expense of human character.