Jesus’ Teachings: Top Quotes
(Last Updated 4th December 2024)
(You can see the full quotes, with sources, below these)
- “I am the way and the truth and the life.” (Jesus)
- “You call me Master and Lord, and rightly, so I am.” (Jesus)
- “Jesus tells us that the purpose of our freedom is to say yes to God’s plan for our lives.” (Pope John-Paul II)
- “Jesus teaches us that we are accountable to God, that we must follow our consciences, but that our consciences must be formed according to God’s plan for our lives.” (Pope John-Paul II)
- “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Jesus)
- “You heard the words of Jesus: ‘Love your enemies.’… I beg you to reflect deeply: what would human life be if Jesus had not spoken such words? What would the world be if in our mutual relations we were to give primacy to hatred among people, between classes, between nations?” (Pope John-Paul II)
- ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly…’ These sayings express not only the essence of nonviolent resistance, but also the heart of Jesus’ preaching…. Love for one’s enemy is the touchstone of being a Christian. (Henri Nouwen)
- “Jesus declared that entry into the Kingdom of God was NOT through observance of the Law. For Jesus there was only one gate by which we could enter into the Kingdom of God—and that gate was COMPASSION.” (Fr Peter McVerry)
- “The Gospel is CERTAINLY DEMANDING. We know that Christ never permitted his disciples and those who listened to him to entertain any illusions about this.” (Pope John-Paul II)
- “Salvation lies not in clever human words or schemes, but in the Cross and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Pope John-Paul II)
- “It is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Jesus)
- “Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life.” (Jesus)
- “It’s not the innocence of children that Jesus praises; rather it’s the fact that children have no illusion of self-sufficiency…. Only God does not need anyone or anything else.” (Fr Ron Rolheiser)
- “Shower those you love with affection and flowers while they are still alive.” (Fr Ron Rolheiser)
- “When Jesus found someone whose dignity was being undermined as a human being, a child of God, … he responded in three ways:
- He affirmed their dignity by the way in which he himself related to them.
- He challenged the attitudes of society.
- As the opposition from the religious authorities grew, he did not pull back or change his mind but continued, even to death, to stand up for and accompany those who were despised.” (Fr Peter McVerry)
- “The gossiper doesn’t stop gossiping. The gossiper goes beyond, he sows discord; he sows enmity, he sows evil. Listen to this, I don’t exaggerate: wars begin with the tongue. . . . So Jesus says: ‘Before running others down, take a mirror and look at yourself; look at your defects and be ashamed for having them. And then you’ll become mute about others’ defects.’” (Pope Francis)
- “Christ commanded his followers to perform what Christians have come to call the Works of Mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the harborless, visiting the sick and the prisoner, and burying the dead. Surely a simple program for direct action, and one enjoined on all of us…. help given from the heart at a personal sacrifice.” (Dorothy Day)
- “Christ said, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'” (Dorothy Day)
- “Jesus is called teacher more than 50 times in the Gospels. Teaching is what he does most often during his ministry. He is mentioned as teaching more than 120 times, far beyond healing or casting out devils.” (Fr Brendan McConvery)
- “The ‘Our Father’ aims to form our being, to train us in the inner attitude of Jesus.” (Pope Benedict XVI)
The Quotes in Full, with Sources:
Jesus’ Teachings
“I am the way and the truth and the life.”
— Jesus (John 14:6)
“You call me Master and Lord, and rightly, so I am.”
— Jesus (John 13:13)
“Jesus tells us that the purpose of our freedom is to say yes to God’s plan for our lives. What makes our ‘yes’ so important is that we say it freely; we are able to say ‘no.’ Jesus teaches us that we are accountable to God, that we must follow our consciences, but that our consciences must be formed according to God’s plan for our lives. In all our relationships to other people and to the world, Jesus teaches us what we must do, how we must live in order not to be deceived, in order to walk in truth. And today, dear young people, I proclaim to you again Jesus Christ: the way, and the truth and the life – your way, your truth and your life.
What is in accord with the truth of Jesus is fulfilment, joy and peace, even if it means effort and discipline. What is not in accord with his truth means disorder, and when done deliberately it means sin. Deliberate or not, it eventually means unhappiness and frustration. ”
— Pope John Paul II (meeting with youth, New Orleans, 1987)
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
— Jesus, in Matthew 22:36-40
“You heard the words of Jesus: ‘Love your enemies.’… I beg you to reflect deeply: what would human life be if Jesus had not spoken such words? What would the world be if in our mutual relations we were to give primacy to hatred among people, between classes, between nations?”
—Pope John-Paul II in Ireland 1979, as quoted in ‘Twenty-Five Years On: A Message for Today’, 2004, Dublin: Veritas, page 55.
‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly…’ These sayings express not only the essence of nonviolent resistance, but also the heart of Jesus’ preaching. If anyone should ask you what are the most radical words in the Gospel, you need not hesitate to reply: ‘Love your enemies.’ It’s these words that reveal to us most clearly the kind of love proclaimed by Jesus. In these words we have the clearest expression of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Love for one’s enemy is the touchstone of being a Christian.
—Henri J.M. Nouwen in ‘Show Me The Way: Readings for Each Day of Lent’, published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd, 2005 edition, page 27
“Christ teaches us that the best use of freedom is charity, which takes concrete form in self-giving and in service.”
— Pope John Paul II (in his 1979 and first encyclical Redemptor Hominis [section 21], which is Latin for ‘The Redeemer of Man’)
“Jesus said two things about the Kingdom of God that were new and radical:
- Jesus declared that entry into the Kingdom of God was NOT through observance of the Law. For Jesus there was only one gate by which we could enter into the Kingdom of God—and that gate was COMPASSION.
- He warned us that ignoring the suffering of those around us would exclude us from the Kingdom of God.”
— Fr Peter McVerry, SJ, page 27 of his book ‘Jesus: Social Revolutionary?‘, Veritas Publications, Dublin, 2008
“The Gospel is CERTAINLY DEMANDING. We know that Christ never permitted his disciples and those who listened to him to entertain any illusions about this…. At the same time, however, he reveals that HIS DEMANDS NEVER EXCEED MAN’S ABILITIES. If man accepts these demands with an attitude of faith, he will also find in the grace that God never fails to give him the necessary strength to meet those demands.”
— Pope John Paul II (in his book ‘Crossing the Threshold of Hope’)
“If there is one challenge facing the Church and her priests today, it is the challenge of transmitting the Christian message whole and entire, without letting it be emptied of its substance. The Gospel cannot be reduced to mere human wisdom. Salvation lies not in clever human words or schemes, but in the Cross and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
— Pope John-Paul II, ‘Address at Vespers, St. Joseph’s Seminary’ 1995 (as quoted in ‘John Paul II: In My Own Words’, 1998, London: Hodder & Stoughton, page 97)
“Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to perdition is wide and spacious, and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
— Jesus (in Matthew 7: 13-14)
“Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life.”
— Jesus (Luke 21) (Jerusalem Bible translation)
“It’s not the innocence of children that Jesus praises; rather it’s the fact that children have no illusion of self-sufficiency. Children have no choice but to know their dependence. They’re not self-sufficient and know that they cannot provide for themselves. If someone doesn’t feed them they go hungry. They need to say, and to say it often: “Help me.” …. Only God does not need anyone or anything else.”
— Fr Ron Rolheiser, The Irish Catholic, Sept 21, 2017 ‘Our Struggles with Riches’
“The anointing of Jesus’ feet in the weeks just before his death (Jn 12:1-8)… Jesus’ challenge here is for us to anoint each other while we are still alive: Shower those you love with affection and flowers while they are still alive, not at their funerals.”
— Fr Ron Rolheiser
“We must learn from Jesus not to complain, not to get angry, and not to lose our tempers with anyone, and not to nurse in our hearts any dislike for those we believe have injured us, but to have compassion for one another, because we all have our faults, some of one kind, some of another, and we must love everyone.”
— Pope John XXIII, “Good Pope John,” in a 1901 letter from Rome to his “beloved parents, brothers, sisters, grandfather, and uncle” as published in his autobiography ‘Journal of a Soul’ revised edition 1980 by Geoffrey Chapman of London & NY, page 354
“Jesus exclaimed: ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.'”
— Jesus (Matthew 11:25 or here)
“The Gospel message is good news to the poor: “Be human, not God.” This poverty, revolting as it is to our nature, is blessed when it is accepted because it opens us to God and makes us realise our need for a Saviour. Aware that we can never find fulfilment in ourselves, we are drawn to look to him alone. It is to little ones, those who accept to be thus poor, that the secrets of God are revealed.”
— Sister Ruth Burrows, O.C.D. (a Carmelite nun at Quidenham in Norfolk, England; an author of a number of best-selling books; as published on page 257 of the July 2012 Magnificat booklet)
“One way of summing up the whole revelation of Jesus is to say that, as God is the parent of us all, every human being has the same dignity of being a child of God, no matter who we are or what we may have done. When Jesus found someone whose dignity was being undermined as a human being, a child of God, … he responded in three ways:
- He affirmed their dignity by the way in which he himself related to them.
- He challenged the attitudes of society.
- As the opposition from the religious authorities grew, he did not pull back or change his mind but continued, even to death, to stand up for and accompany those who were despised.
…. Affirming the dignity of travellers, homeless people, drug users and offenders is often a challenge to the conventional thinking of a society.”
— Fr Peter McVerry, SJ, pages 19, 20, 22, 24 of his book ‘Jesus: Social Revolutionary?’, Veritas Publications, Dublin, 2008
“What Jesus has to say is not in code, is not specialist, is for all…. The truths of life are simple. Jesus didn’t come to confuse—that’s the satanic power—but to clarify.”
— Fr Paschal Scanlon, Vincentian, St. Peter’s, Phibsboro, Dublin
“The gossiper doesn’t stop gossiping. The gossiper goes beyond, he sows discord; he sows enmity, he sows evil. Listen to this, I don’t exaggerate: wars begin with the tongue. You, by badmouthing others, start a war — take a step towards war, towards destruction. Because it’s the same thing to destroy with the tongue as with an atomic bomb; it’s the same. You destroy. And the tongue has the power to destroy as an atomic bomb. It’s very powerful. And I don’t say this, the Apostle James says it in his Letter. Take the Bible and look this up. It’s very powerful! It’s capable of destroying. And with insults, with badmouthing others, many wars begin: domestic wars — one starts shouting—, wars in the neighbourhood, in the workplace, in school, in the parish . . . So Jesus says: ‘Before running others down, take a mirror and look at yourself; look at your defects and be ashamed for having them. And then you’ll become mute about others’ defects.’”
— Pope Francis in a homily on a parish visit to Saint Crispin of Viterbo in Rome on 3rd March 2019, https://zenit.org/articles/popes-homily-at-saint-crispin-of-viterbo/ Italian text by © Libreria Editrice Vatican, translated by Virginia Forrester for Zenit
“Christ commanded his followers to perform what Christians have come to call the Works of Mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the harborless, visiting the sick and the prisoner, and burying the dead. Surely a simple program for direct action, and one enjoined on all of us. Not just for impersonal ‘poverty programs’, government-funded agencies, but help given from the heart at a personal sacrifice.”
— Dorothy Day in the book ‘Dorothy Day: Selected Writings‘; Orbis Books, New York; 2005 edition; edited by Robert Ellsberg; page 315, in the section ‘Politics and Principles’
“It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy.
Jesus introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples.
Let us rediscover these corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead.
And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead.”
— Pope Francis, as quoted in the May 2015 Monthly Message by the World Union of Catholic Women’s Associations
“Christ told Peter to put aside his nets and follow him. He told the rich young man to sell what he had and give to the poor and follow him. He said that those who lost their lives for his sake should find them. He told his followers that if anyone begged for their coats to give up their cloaks, too. He spoke of feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless, of visiting those in prison and the sick, and also of instructing the ignorant. He said, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'”
— Dorothy Day in the book ‘Dorothy Day: Selected Writings’; Orbis Books, New York; 2005 edition; edited by Robert Ellsberg; page 69; July-August 1935
“And studying the New Testament, and its commentators, I have come in this my seventy-sixth year, to think of a few holy words of Jesus as the greatest comfort in my life.
‘Judge not.”Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’
‘Forgive seventy times seven times.’
All words of our Lord and Saviour. I ‘have knowledge of salvation through forgiveness of my sins,’ as Zacharias sang in his canticle.”
— Dorothy Day in the book ‘Dorothy Day: Selected Writings’; Orbis Books, New York; 2005 edition; edited by Robert Ellsberg; page 348; December 1972
“To us at The Catholic Worker, anarchism means ‘Love God and do as you will.’ ‘For such, there is no law.’ ‘If anyone asks for your cloak, give him your coat too.’ One could go on with these scriptural teachings of Jesus.”
— Dorothy Day in the book ‘Dorothy Day: Selected Writings’; Orbis Books, New York; 2005 edition; edited by Robert Ellsberg; page 357; July-August 1977
“Jesus is called teacher more than 50 times in the Gospels. Teaching is what he does most often during his ministry. He is mentioned as teaching more than 120 times, far beyond healing or casting out devils. At its core, the Catholic Church’s interest in education is inspired, not by any desire for political control or for social management, but by the hope of continuing in the path of Jesus the Teacher.”
— Fr Brendan McConvery CSsR (Redemptorist), in his Editorial in the September 2014 issue of ‘Reality’
“The ‘Our Father’ aims to form our being, to train us in the inner attitude of Jesus.”
— Pope Benedict XVI in his first book as Pope: ‘Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration’, 2007, page 132 and chapter five (‘The Lord’s Prayer’) of the London: Bloomsbury Publishing edition
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