Top 300 Pope Benedict XVI Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

Featured in: Faith Quotes, Greatness Quotes

2. “Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

3. “God is always faithful to His promises, but He often surprises us in the way He fulfills them.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

4. “If we allow the love of Christ to change our heart, then we can change the world. This is the secret of authentic happiness.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

5. “One who has hope lives differently.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

6. “A good school provides a rounded education for the whole person. And a good Catholic school, over and above this, should help all its students to become saints.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

7. “Truth is not determined by a majority vote.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

8. “It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

9. “Do you want to know yourself better? Then discover silence.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

10. “Advent is the spiritual season of hope par excellence, and in this season the whole Church is called to be hope, for itself and for the world.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

11. “Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

12. “Dear young people, the happiness you are seeking, the happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist. Only he gives the fullness of life to humanity! With Mary, say your own “yes” to God, for he wishes to give himself to you.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

13. “The cross reminds us that there is no true love without suffering, there is no gift of life without pain.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

14. “Lent stimulates us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and in this way to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we come from, where we must go, what path we must take in life...”

— Pope Benedict XVI

15. “I have a mustard seed; and I am not afraid to use it.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

16. “Everything in this world will pass away. In eternity only Love will remain.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

17. “The Church is missionary by nature and her principal task is evangelization, which aims to proclaim and to witness to Christ and to promote his Gospel of peace and love in every environment and culture.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

18. “God is our Father and loves us, even when his silence remains incomprehensible.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

19. “To be sure, it was not Easter Sunday but Holy Saturday, but, the more I reflect on it, the more this seems to be fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing in the full light but walking toward it full of trust.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

20. “With the Rosary, we allow ourselves to be guided by Mary, model of faith, in meditating on the mysteries of Christ, and day after day we are helped to assimilate the Gospel, so that it shapes all our lives.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

21. “Do not be afraid to say ‘yes’ to Jesus: to find your joy in doing His will.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

22. “Consecrated life means going to the very root of the love of Jesus Christ with an undivided heart and putting nothing ahead of this love.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

23. “Music, great music, distends the spirit, arouses profound emotions and almost naturally invites us to raise our minds and hearts to God in all situations of human existence, the joyful and the sad. Music can become prayer.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

24. “God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world: peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the Earth.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

25. “Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

26. “Holiness does not consist in not making mistakes or never sinning. Holiness grows with capacity for conversion, repentance, willingness to begin again, and above all with the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

27. “Purity of heart is what enables us to see.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

28. “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

29. “The happiness you have a right to enjoy has a name and a face: it is Jesus of Nazareth, hidden in the Eucharist.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

30. “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful, and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

31. “Advent, this powerful liturgical season that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence. It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us, signs of the attention he has for each one of us.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

32. “The discernment of a vocation is above all the fruit of an intimate dialogue between the Lord and his disciples. Young people, if they know how to pray, can be trusted to know what to do with God’s call.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

33. “During the season of Lent which begins today, we renew our commitment to the path of conversion, making more room for God in our lives.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

34. “God loves us despite our shortcomings and sins, and his love gives meaning to our lives and to the life of the world.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

35. “Because the truth of God is love, conversion to God is conversion to love.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

36. “Mary’s greatness consists in the fact that she wants to magnify God, not herself.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

37. “Friends, do not be afraid of silence or stillness. Listen to God. Adore Him in the Eucharist.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

38. “The environment is God’s gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations, and towards humanity as a whole.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

39. “The Catechism was not written to please you. It will not make life easy for you, because it demands of you a new life.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

40. “The ways of the Lord are not comfortable, but we were not created for comfort, but for greatness, for good.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

41. “There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

42. “Every human life is precious in God’s sight and no effort should be spared in the attempt to promote throughout the world a genuine respect for the inalienable rights and dignity of individuals and peoples everywhere.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

43. “To desire the common good and strive towards it is a requirement of justice and charity.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

44. “The destruction of the environment, its improper or selfish use, and the violent hoarding of the Earth’s resources cause grievances, conflicts and wars, precisely because they are the consequences of an inhumane concept of development.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

45. “Silence ‘is so lacking in this world which is often too noisy, which is not favorable to recollection and listening to the voice of God. In this time of preparation for Christmas, let us cultivate interior recollection so as to receive and keep Jesus in our lives.’”

— Pope Benedict XVI

46. “Almsgiving, according to the Gospel, is not mere philanthropy; rather it is a concrete expression of charity, a theological virtue that demands interior conversion to love of God and neighbor, in imitation of Jesus Christ, who, dying on the cross, gave his entire self for us.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

47. “The Catholic Church is not dead, it is not even tired!”

— Pope Benedict XVI

48. “Anyone who has discovered Christ must lead others to him. A great joy cannot be kept to oneself. It has to be passed on.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

49. “If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge. You know that the foundation of the world is love, so that even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One that loves you.”

— Pope Benedict XVI

50. “Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think.”

— Pope Benedict XVI