Pope John XXIII Quotes & Sayings

“Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”

“I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart.”

“Men are like wine - some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.”

“It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.”

“The family is the first essential cell of human society.”

“See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little.”

“It is now for the Catholic Church to bend herself to her work with calmness and generosity. It is for you to observe her with renewed and friendly attention.”

“It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.”

“The council now beginning rises in the Church like the daybreak, a forerunner of most splendid light.”

“Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways, women, gambling, and farming. My family chose the slowest one.”