Remembering Pope Benedict XVI With 20 of His Most Inspiring Quotes

'The least power of love is already greater than the greatest power of destruction.'

Former Pope Benedict XVI, born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, passed away on Dec. 31, 2022. But he has left behind quite the legacy—in his actions, his faith and his words. To honor this legacy and his life, we've gathered up 20 powerful Pope Benedict quotes to inspire you.

In 2013, Pope Benedict was the first pontiff in 600 years to resign. He was admired by many around the world and will continue to make an impact from the words that he left behind—many of them pointing individuals to hope, to love, to doing something truly great in life and to God.

20 Best Pope Benedict Quotes

1. "Truth is not determined by a majority vote."

2. "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God.”

3. "The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness."

Related: 100 Bible Quotes That'll Lift Your Spirits and Help You Get Through Anything

4. "To have Christian hope means to know about evil and yet to go to meet the future with confidence. The core of faith rests upon accepting being loved by God, and therefore to believe is to say Yes, not only to him, but to creation, to creatures, above all, to men, to try to see the image of God in each person and thereby to become a lover."

5. "My dear young friends, I want to invite you to 'dare to love.'"

6. "The loss of joy does not make the world better - and, conversely, refusing joy for the sake of suffering does not help those who suffer. The contrary is true. The world needs people who discover the good, who rejoice in it and thereby derive the impetus and courage to do good. Joy, then, does not break with solidarity. When it is the right kind of joy, when it is not egotistic, when it comes from the perception of the good, then it wants to communicate itself, and it gets passed on."

7. "Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think.”

8. "Purity of heart is what enables us to see.”

9. "The human person finds his perfection 'in seeking and loving what is true and good.'"

10. "It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater.”

11. "It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity. Through Mary, and the other holy women, the feminine element stands at the heart of the Christian religion.”

12. "One who has hope lives differently.”

13. "Love is the only force capable of changing the heart of the human person and of all humanity, by making fruitful the relations between men and women, between rich and poor, between cultures and civilizations."

14. "All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us.”

Related: Finding Calm in the Chaos, Here Are 40 Scriptures on Peace to Help Soothe Your Soul

15. "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. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation."

16. "Something I constantly notice is that unembarrassed joy has become rarer. Joy today is increasingly saddled with moral and ideological burdens, so to speak."

17. "The least power of love is already greater than the greatest power of destruction."

18. "A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth."

19. "Intelligence and love are not in separate compartments: love is rich in intelligence and intelligence is full of love.”

20. "The 'commandment' of love is only possible because it is more than a requirement. Love can be 'commanded' because it has first been given."

Next up, 51 Uplifting Bible Verses About Faith to Brighten Even the Darkest Days