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Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of others.

— Pope Leo XIII Rerum novarum (1891)

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More quotes by Pope Leo XIII

The best parent and guardian of liberty amongst men is truth.

Encyclical: Immortale Dei (1885)

The worst kind of heretic is one who, teaching for the most part true Catholic doctrine, adds a word of heresy like a drop of poison in a glass of water."

Base trade in human beings carried on in the most barbarous fashion, those who wield power, those who sway empires, those who desire that the rights of nature and humanity be respected, and those who desire the progress of religion, to unite everywhere towards the abolition of this most shameful and most criminal traffic.

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice.

Encyclical: Immortale Dei 31 (1885)

The sect of Freemasons grew with a rapidity beyond conception in the course of a century and a half, until it came to be able, by means of fraud or of audacity, to gain such entrance into every rank of the State as to seem to be almost its ruling power.

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The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

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Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Pope Leo XIII (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.