The feelings of my smallness and my nothingness always kept me good company.
Interpretation
Embracing one's humility can lead to self-awareness and contentment.
In this quote, Pope John XXIII reflects on the importance of recognizing one's own limitations and insignificance in the grand scheme of life. This acknowledgment of 'smallness and nothingness' fosters a sense of groundedness and companionship with one's genuine self, allowing for personal growth and connection with others.
In practice
In a speech about personal development, one might say, 'As Pope John XXIII once said, my smallness and nothingness keeps me good company, reminding us to stay grounded.'
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.
Prayer is the raising of the mind to God. We must always remember this. The actual words matter less.
To keep me from sin and straying from Him, God has used devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. My life vows destined to be spent in the light irradiating from the tabernacle, and it is to the Heart of Jesus that I dare go for the solution of all my problems
Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.
The Catholic Church has a dignity far surpassing that of every merely human society, for it was founded by Christ the Lord. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the language it uses should be noble, majestic, and non-vernacular.
Prudent is he who can keep silent that part of truth which may be untimely, and by not speaking it, does not spoil the truth of what he said.
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,_x000D_ _x000D_ The seasons' difference, as the icy fang_x000D_ _x000D_ And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,_x000D_ _x000D_ Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,_x000D_ _x000D_ Even till I shrink with cold, I smile.
Far too often, when we think we are frightened by mystery, the fact is that we are haunted by history.
To be bigoted & argue with others, is to subject one's essence of mind to the bitterness of mundane existence.
I am still so naïve; I know pretty much what I like and dislike; but please, don’t ask me who I am. A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?
My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. 'Something cannot emerge from nothing,' he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be.
The reader of these Memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed aim before my eyes, and that my system, if it can be called a system, has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life, trusting to the wind wherever it led.
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