Quotes from Pope Benedict XVI

Look at the face of the other... discover that he has a soul, a history and a life, that he is a person and that God loves this person.

The ways of the Lord are not easy, but we were not created for an easy life, but for great things, for goodness.

Mercy is what moves us toward God, while justice makes us tremble in his sight.

For me, it's a great joy to be together with priests: in the end, the bishop of Rome is the bishop and brother of all priests. His mandate is to confirm the brothers in the faith.

God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf.

God in fact does not change: he is faithful to himself.

Society as a whole must defend the conceived child's right to life and the true good of the woman who can never, in any circumstances, find fulfilment in the decision to abort.

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.

One who has hope lives differently.

We have to pay attention to developing well, in the correct manner, the human aspects also in the professions, in respect of other persons, in being concerned for others, which is the best way of being concerned for ourselves.

I realized that everything I had to do I could not do on my own, and so I was almost obliged to put myself in God's hands, to trust in Jesus who - while I wrote my book on him - I felt bound to by an old and more profound friendship.

I no longer wield the power of the office for the government of the church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, within St. Peter's bounds. St. Benedict, whose name I bear as pope, shall be a great example in this for me. He showed us the way to a life which, active or passive, belongs wholly to the work of God.