23 Quotes by John Paul II

Love between man and woman cannot be built without sacrifices and self-denial.

Love consists of a commitment which limits one's freedom - it is a giving of the self, and to give oneself means just that: to limit one's freedom on behalf of another.

Whenever a person is the object of your activity, remember that you may not treat that person as only the means to an end, as in instrument, but must allow for the fact that he or she, too, has or at least should have, distinct personal ends.

The human being is single, unique, and unrepeatable, someone thought of and chosen from eternity, someone called and identified by name

A person is an objective entity, which as a definite subject has the closest contacts with the whole (external) world and is most intimately involved with it precisely because of its inwardness, its interior life.

In the materialistic perspective described so far, interpersonal relations are seriously impoverished. The first to be harmed are women, children, the sick or suffering, and the elderly. The criterion of personal dignity-which demands respect, generosity and service-is replaced by the criterion of efficiency, functionality and usefulness: others are considered not for what they "are", but for what they "have, do and produce". This is the supremacy of the strong over the weak.

God allows man to learn His supernatural ends, but the decision to strive towards an end, the choice of course, is left to man's free will. God does not redeem man against his will.

The term 'person' has been coined to signify that a man cannot be wholly contained within the concept 'individual member of the species', but that there is something more to him, a particular richness and perfection in the manner of his being, which can only be brought out by the use of the word 'person'.

A person is an entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love.