Pope John Paul II Quotes

I'm a human being, god-dammit. My life has value!

We're not inherently anything but human.

Man would be otherwise. That is the essence of the specifically human.

Man is worth more for what he is than for what he has.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him.

But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of Bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us.

There is purpose and worth to each and every life.

I am primarily concerned with the condition of man.

In the early ages, I believe not much thought was given to what man is and what his real functions should be, and what is the real purpose of his life.

There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.

All human beings are intrinsically valuable, and the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.

Every human life is worth so much.

I think it's really important to remind, reinforce people that their lives have value, you know? That their lives have worth.

We like our individuality, we like the mysteriousness of us, the essentialism of us, and it can be alarming to see the biological gears turning underneath.

How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!

The human condition comprehends more than the condition under which life has been given to man. Men are conditioned beings because everything they come in contact with turns immediately into a condition of their existence. The world in which the vita activa spends itself consists of things produced by human activities; but the things that owe their existence exclusively to men nevertheless constantly condition their human makers.

Things have a price and can be for sale. But people have a dignity that is priceless and worth far more than things.

All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other purpose than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.

The big problem of any young person's life is to have models to suggest possibilities. Nietzsche says, 'Man is the sick animal.' Man is the animal that doesn't know what to do with itself. The mind has many possibilities, but we can live no more than one life. What are we going to do with ourselves?

It's a morality that keeps humans human.

None of us come to this earth to gain our worth; we brought it with us.

All human life is precious.

Our search for such [moral] principles can start with . . . the unconditional imperative to acknowledge every person as a person. If we ask for the contents given by this absolute, we find, first, something negative-the command not to treat a person as a thing. This seems little, but it is much. It is the core of the principle of justice.

The best and purest human beings, from the beginning of time, have understood that life is sacred.

Man is the only animal who does not feel at home in nature, who can feel evicted from paradise, the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem that he has to solve and from which he cannot escape. He cannot go back to the prehuman state of harmony with nature, and he does not know where he will arrive if he goes forward. Man's existential contradiction results in a state of constant disequilibrium. This disequilibrium distinguishes him from the animal, which lives, as it were, in harmony with nature.