For a stalk to grow or a flower to open there must be time that cannot be forced; nine months must go by for the birth of a human child; to write a book or compose music often years must be dedicated to patient research ...To find the mystery there must be patience, interior purification, silence, waiting.

Our very contract with nature has a deep restorative power; contemplation of its magnificence imparts peace and serenity.

In the newborn child is realized the common good of the family.

All human life-from the moment of conception and through all subsequent stages-is sacred, because human life is created in the image and likeness of God. Nothing surpasses the greatness or dignity of a human person...If a person's right to life is violated at the moment in which he is first conceived in his mother's womb, an indirect blow is struck also at the whole moral order.

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.

The world [is] tired of ideology [and] is opening itself to the truth. The time has come when the splendor of this truth has begun anew to illuminate the darkness of human existence.

The legal toleration of abortion or of euthanasia can in no way claim to be based on respect for the conscience of others, precisely because society has the right and the duty to protect itself against the abuses which can occur in the name of conscience and under the pretext of freedom.