Pope John Paul II Quotes

The big, blazing truth about man is that he has a heaven-sized hole in his heart, and nothing else can fill it. We pass our lives trying to fill the Grand Canyon with marbles. As Augustine said: Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.

Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.

I'm really intrigued by those eternal questions of creation and belief and faith. I don't care who you are, it's what we all think about. It's in the back of all our minds.

I'm convinced we all have a God-shaped space in us, and until we fill that space with God, we'll never know what it is to be whole.

The lyrics are a lot about those big questions: why are we here, how did we get here, what's the point, and what's next. When those questions come up with fans, I would absolutely share with them what has helped me and where I stand on what it is that I believe.

A thirst for the infinite is indelibly present in human beings. Man was created to have a relationship with God; we need him.

Our life is a gymnasium of desire.... When Christians say "God," what do we wish to express? This word is all that we yearn for."

Built into human makeup is a longing for a 'more' that the world of everyday experience cannot requite.

If I did not believe that our work was done in the faith and hope that at some day, it may be a million years hence, the Kingdom of God will spread over the whole world, I would have no hope, I could do no work, and I would give my office over this morning to anyone who would take it.

Late have I loved Thee, O Lord; and behold, Thou wast within and I without, and there I sought Thee. Thou was with me when I was not with Thee. Thou didst call, and cry, and burst my deafness. Thou didst gleam, and glow, and dispell my blindness. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace. For Thyself Thou hast made us, and restless our hearts until in Thee they find their ease. Late have I loved Thee, Thou Beauty ever old and ever new. Thou hast burst my bonds asunder; unto Thee will I offer up an offering of praise.

People are hungry for something more beautiful, for something greater than people round about can give. There is a great hunger for God in the world today. Everywhere there is much suffering, but there is also great hunger for God and love for each other.

Let us open the doors to the Spirit, let ourselves be guided by him, and allow God's constant help to make us new men and women, inspired by the love of God which the Holy Spirit bestows on us! How beautiful it would be if each of you, every evening, could say: Today at school, at home, at work, guided by God, I showed a sign of love towards one of my friends, my parents, an older person! How beautiful!

The fulfilling of who you are and your purpose for being here is not found outside, it's trusting God to move you, to inspire you.

The modern challenge to motherhood is the eternal challenge--that of being a godly woman. The very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now. We hear about every other type of women: beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career women, talented women, divorced women. But so seldom to we hear of a godly woman--or of a godly man either, for that matter. I believe women come nearer to fulfilling their God-given function in the home than anywhere else.

Each individual creature on this beautiful planet is created by God to fulfil a particular role. Whatever I have achieved in life is through His help and an expression of His will. He showered His grace on me through some outstanding teachers and colleagues and when I pay my tributes to these fine persons, I am merely praising His glory. We are all born with a divine fire in us.

God is a specialist at making something useful and beautiful out of something broken and confused.

Your heart is like an infinitely large hole, and only God is big enough to fill it.

God is not free from human beings but for them.

Creating the human race in His own image and continually keeping it in being, God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation... of love and communion. Love is therefore the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being.

It is concern that precedes and inspires agendas, and survives when agendas fail, and it causes us to try again, always trying our best, never certain about our own judgment. It is knowing that God's purpose exceeds whatever we can put in an agenda.

Why did Father give these humans free will? Now they're all confused.

If you've never had a God-sized dream that scared you half to death, then you haven't really come to life. If you've never been overwhelmed by the impossibility of your plans, then your God is too small. If your vision isn't perplexingly impossible, then you need to expand the radiuses of your prayer circles.

Religion is indeed a convention which a man must be bred in to endure with any patience; and yet religion, for all its poetic motley, comes closer than work-a-day opinion to the heart of things.

Is it the gods who set this fire in our hearts, or do we each make our fierce desire into a god?

If God made poets for anything, it was to keep alive the traditions of the pure, the holy, and the beautiful.