Mother Teresa was a nun who was famous for her charity and serving the needy in Calcutta. Here are the most popular quotes by Mother Teresa.
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
“Peace begins with a smile.”
“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”
“Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
“The most terrible poverty is lonliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living express of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.
“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.”
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love.”
“There are many in the world who are dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty – it is not only a poverty of lonliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
“These are the ways we can practice humility:
To speak as little as possible of one’s self.
To mind one’s own business.
Not to want to manage other people’s affairs.
To avoid curiosity.
To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully.
To pass over the mistakes of others.
To accept insults and injuries.
To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked.
To be kind and gentle even under provocation.
Never to stand on one’s dignity.
To choose always the hardest.”
“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”
“Live simply so others may simply live.”
“Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.”
“I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.”
“If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.”
“We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”
“I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”
“A life not lived for others is not a life.”
“A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness.”
“I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.”
“Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.”
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.”
“Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”
“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.”
“Love to be real, it must cost – it must hurt – it must empty us of self.”
“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much great pverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“People are unrealistic, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway.”
“Love is not patronizing and charity isn’t about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same 0 with charity you give love, so don’t just give money but reach out your hand instead.”
“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”
“The person who gives with a smile is the best giver because God loves a cheerful giver.”
“In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”
“If we pray, we will believe; if we believe, we will love; if we love, we will serve.”
“Give, but give until it hurts.”
“Spread the love of God through your life but only use words when necessary.”
“Without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less. Ironically, rush and more usually mean less.”
“When you don’t have anything, then you have everything.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“Prayer in action in love, love in action is service.”
“How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.”
“Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.”
“Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus – a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.”
“Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.”
“I must be willing to give whatever it takes to do good to others. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me, and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.”
“The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family.”
“Joy is a net of love in which you can catch souls.”
“Intense love does not measure it just gives.”
“Never be so busy as not to think of others.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand.”
“There are many people who can do big things, but there are very few people who will do the small things.”
“A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love. She gives most who gives with joy.”
“Jesus said love one another. He didn’t say love the whole world.”
“Profound joy of the heart is like a magnet that indicates the path of life.”
“The greatest science in the world; in heaven and on earth; is love.”
“We must know that we have been created for greater things, not just to be a number in the world, not just to go for diplomas and degress, this work and that work. We have been created in order to love and to be loved.”
“Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread you love everywhere you go.”
“Lonliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”
“Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a new door neighbor…”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“Go out into the world today and love the people you meet. Let your presence light new light in the hearts of people.”
“Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.”
“If I look at the mass I will never act.”
“It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.”
“I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.”
“Prayer is the mortar that holds our house together.”
“It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.”
“When you have nothing left but God, you have more than enough to start over again.”
“Some people come in our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons.”
“Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“In the final analysis it is between you and God, it was never between you and them anyway.”
“What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.”
“To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.”
“It is not what to do, but how much love we put into the doing. We can do not greats, only small things with great love.”
“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.”
“God does not require that we be successful only that we be faithful.”
“I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?”
“Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening; this is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.”
“Prayer makes your heart bigger, until it is capable of containing the gift of God himself. Prayer begets faith, faith begets love, and love begets service on behalf of the poor.”
“I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“The trees, the flowers, the plants grow in silence. The stars, the sun, the moon move in silence. Silence gives us a new perspective.”
“Joy is strength.”
“The success of love is in the loving – it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to wnat the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done.”
“Each of us is merely a small instrument; all of us, after acommplishing our mission, will disappear.”
“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”
“Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in accpeting and following the will of God.”
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”
“Keep the corners of your mouth turned up. Speak in a low, persuasive tone. Listen; be teachable. Laugh at good stories and learn to tell them… For as long as you are green, you can grow.”
“I used to pray that God would feed the hungry, or do this or that, but now I pray that he will guide me to do whatever I’m supposed to do, what I can do. I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things.”
“When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“Christ came to be Father’s compassion to the world. Be kind in your actions. Do not think that you are the only one who can do efficient work, work worth showing. This makes you harsh in your judgment of others who may not have the same talents. Do you rbest and trust that others do their best. And be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
“I am a little pencil in God’s hands. He does the thinking. He does the writing. He does everything and sometimes it is really hard because it is a broken pencil and He has to sharpen it a little more.”
“One filled with joy preaches without preaching.”
“There’s nothing more calming in difficult moments than knowing there’s someone fighting with you.”
“We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully.”
“Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. if you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be disgraced. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedastal.”
“If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out.”
“One truly must have suffered oneself to help others.”
“He who is faultless does not care for the opinion of others.”
“Do we know our poor people? Do we know the poor in our house, in our family? Perhaps they are not hungry for a piece of bread. Perhaps our children, husband, wife, are not hungry, or naked, or dispossessed, but are you sure there is no one there who feels unwanted, deprived of affection?”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives – the pain, the lonliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them.”
“Joy must be one of the pivots of our life. It is the token of a generous personality. Sometimes it is also a mantle that clothes a life of sacrifice and self-giving. A person who has this gift often reaches high summits. He or she is like sun in a community.”
“Everything that is not given is lost.”
“Why can’t there by love that never gets tired?”
“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.”
“In the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world.”
“When a poor person dies of hunger it has not happen because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.”
“The very fact that God has placed a certain soul in our way is a signn that God wants us to do something for him or her. It is not chance; it has been planned by God. We are bound by conscience to help him or her.”
“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”
“Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet come; we must live each day as if it were our last so that when God calls us we are ready and prepared to die with a clean heart.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and growth in divine love.”
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is costly, care for it.
Life is wealth, keep it.
Like is love, enjoy it.
Like is mystery, know it.
Like is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is a sorrow, overcome it.
Like is a song, sing it.
Like is a struggle, accept it.
Like is a tragedy, confront it.
Like is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Like is too pracious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it!”
“Our poor people are great people, a very lovable people. They don’t need our pity and sympathy. They need our understanding love and they need our respect. We need to tell the poor that they are somebody to us that they, too, have been created, by the same loving hand of God, to love and be loved.”
“God gives us things to share, God doesn’t give us things to hold.”
“If you are joyful, do not worry about lukewarmness. Joy will shine in your eyes and in your look, in your concersation and in your countenance. You will not be able to hide it because joy overflows.”
“God doens’t ask that we succeed in everything, but that we are faithful. However beautiful our work may be, let us not become attached to it. Always remain prepared to give it up, without losing your peace.”
“If you give what you do not need, it is not giving.”
“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.”
“But still, everything is for Jesus; so like that everything is beautiful, even though it is difficult.”
QUOTES BY MOTHER TERESA
“I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish.”
“In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth, a life full of the most atrocious tortures on earth, will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.”
“Am I ever angry or frustrated? I only feel angry sometimes when I see waste, when things that we waste are what people need, things that would save them from dying. Frustrated? No, ever.”
“She knows how to suffer and at the same time how to laugh.”
“We must never be afraid to be a sign of contradiction for the world.”
“Jesus wants me to tell you again… how much is the love He has for each one of you – beyond all what you can imagine… not only He loves you, even more – He longs for you. He misses you when you don’t come close. He thirsts for you. He loves you always, even when you don’t feel worthy.”
“The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.”
“Today somebody is suffering, today somebody is in the street, today somebody is hungry… We have only today to make Jesus known, loved, served, fed, clothed, sheltered. Do not wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will not have them if we do not feed them today.”
“If our bones were not sending whispers of doubt to our hearts, there would be no need for prayer at all.”
