Mother Teresa dedicated her life to helping the poor, and some of her most quoted words are among some of the most inspiring quotes in the world.
Mother Teresa was a Roman Catholic nun who devoted her life to helping the poor. She was known for her work in Calcutta, India, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
Mother Teresa was a force for good in the world. She dedicated her life to helping the poor, the sick, and the dying. She was a nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity, a religious congregation that provides assistance to people in need. Her work has inspired many people to do good in the world. Let’s take a closer look at her life and legacy.
Mother Teresa’s Life
Mother Teresa was born on August 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. Her parents were of Albanian descent. She was baptized as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. When she was eight years old, her father died. Her mother raised her as a devout Catholic. In 1928, she left home to join the Sisters of Loreto as a missionary in India. She took her vows as a nun in 1931 and took the name Sister Mary Teresa after Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.
In 1948, Mother Teresa experienced a calling from God to help the poor. She founded the Missionaries of Charity to help those who were poor, sick, or dying. The congregation grew rapidly. By the 1960s, it had spread to countries all over the world. The Missionaries of Charity became known for their work with leprosy patients and AIDS sufferers. They also opened homes for orphans and refugees.
Mother Teresa died on September 5, 1997. She was canonized as a saint by Pope Francis on September 4, 2016. Her feast day is celebrated on September 5. Mother Teresa is remembered for her selfless dedication to helping those in need. She is an inspiration to many people who strive to make the world a better place.
Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.
– Mother Teresa
Kindness has converted more people than zeal, science, or eloquence. Holiness grows so fast where there is kindness.
– Mother Teresa
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one’s neighbor who lives at the roadside, the victim of exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease.
– Mother Teresa
If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
– Mother Teresa
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.
– Mother Teresa
Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep for every dream precedes the goal.
– Mother Teresa
Let nothing trouble you, let nothing frighten you. All things are passing; God never changes. Patience obtains all things. He who possesses God lacks nothing. God alone suffices.
– Mother Teresa
Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, and kindness in your smile.
– Mother Teresa
People are generally irrational, unreasonable, and selfish. They deserve to be loved, anyway.
– Mother Teresa
It is Christmas every time you let God love others through you.
– Mother Teresa
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What can we do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.
– Mother Teresa
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is a beauty, admire 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 a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is life, fight for it.
– Mother Teresa
We have only today. Let us begin.
– Mother Teresa
Intense love does not measure, it just gives.
– Mother Teresa
Much more is accomplished by a single word of Our Father now and then, from our heart, than by the whole prayer repeated many times in haste and without attention.
– Mother Teresa
There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.
– Mother Teresa
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Best Mother Teresa Quotes
Some people come into our life as blessings. Some come into your life as lessons.
– Mother Teresa
Love is not patronizing and charity isn’t about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same — with charity you give love, so don’t just give money but reach out your hand instead.
– Mother Teresa
Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love – joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
– Mother Teresa
People who love each other fully and truly are the happiest people in the world; they may have little, they may have nothing, but they are happy people. Everything depends on how we love one another.
– Mother Teresa
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
– Mother Teresa
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.
– Mother Teresa
Every work of love done with a full heart brings people closer to God.
– Mother Teresa
Doctors can heal the body, but it is music that uplifts the spirit.
– Mother Teresa
God has created us to love and to be loved, and this is the beginning of prayer-to know that He loves me, that I have been created for greater things.
– Mother Teresa
Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need every family to have joy.
– Mother Teresa
Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
– Mother Teresa
The beginning of prayer is silence. If we really want to pray we must first learn to listen, for in the silence of the heart God speaks. And to be able to see that silence, to be able to hear God we need a clean heart; for a clean heart can see God, can hear God, can listen to God, and then only from the fullness of our heart can we speak to God. But we cannot speak unless we have listened unless we have made that connection with God in the silence of our hearts.
– Mother Teresa
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.
– Mother Teresa
The Simple Path – Silence is Prayer; Prayer is Faith; Faith is Love; Love is Service; The Fruit of Service is Peace.
– Mother Teresa
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.
– Mother Teresa
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
– Mother Teresa
Famous Quotes by Mother Teresa
Do not allow yourselves to be disheartened by any failure as long as you have done your best.
– Mother Teresa
If we pray, we will believe; if we believe, we will love; if we love, we will serve.
– Mother Teresa
It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. Bring love into your home, for this is where our love for each other must start.
– Mother Teresa
The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.
– Mother Teresa
I pray that each one of you is holy and so spread His Love everywhere you go. Light His Light of truth in every person’s life, so that God can continue loving the world through you and me.
– Mother Teresa
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.
– Mother Teresa
The beautiful thing about the pro-life movement is that it is ordinary people doing extraordinary things for God.
– Mother Teresa
If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.
– Mother Teresa
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.
– Mother Teresa
Feel often during the day the need for prayer and pray. Prayer opens the heart, till it is capable of containing God himself. Ask and seek and your heart will be big enough to receive Him and keep Him as your own.
– Mother Teresa
Give your hands to serve and your hearts to love.
– Mother Teresa
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
– Mother Teresa
Never be so busy as not to think of others.
– Mother Teresa
God gives us things to share; God doesn’t give us things to hold.
– Mother Teresa
Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand.
– Mother Teresa
Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.
– Mother Teresa
Thoughts 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.
– Mother Teresa
We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love & compassion.
– Mother Teresa
Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience.
– Mother Teresa
The poor are great! The poor are wonderful! The poor are very generous! They give us much more than what we give them.
– Mother Teresa
I am nothing; I am but an instrument, a tiny pencil in the hands of the Lord with which He writes what he likes. However imperfect we are, he writes beautifully.
– Mother Teresa
May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in!
– Mother Teresa
Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness.
– Mother Teresa
We cannot condemn or judge or passwords that will hurt people. We don’t know in what way God is appearing to that soul and what God is drawing that soul to; therefore, who are we to condemn anybody?
– Mother Teresa
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
– Mother Teresa
Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.
– Mother Teresa
I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.
– Mother Teresa
Spread the love of God through your life but only use words when necessary.
– Mother Teresa
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without being tired.
– Mother Teresa
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier
– Mother Teresa
God didn’t call me to be successful; He called me to be faithful.
– Mother Teresa
Love cannot remain by itself – it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service.
– Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa Famous Quotes
In the end, dear friend, it is always between us and God, not between us and them.
– Mother Teresa
Helping hands are better than Praying Lips.
– Mother Teresa
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
– Mother Teresa
A clean heart can see God, can speak to God, and see the love of God in others.
– Mother Teresa
Nothing makes you happier than when you really reach out in mercy to someone who is badly hurt.
– Mother Teresa
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.
– Mother Teresa
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.
– Mother Teresa
Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
– Mother Teresa
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, kindness, understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.
– Mother Teresa
Prayer is the mortar that holds our house together.
– Mother Teresa
A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.
– Mother Teresa
How can you love God whom you do not see if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live?
– Mother Teresa
Do not worry about why problems exist in the world – just respond to people’s needs.
– Mother Teresa
God doesn’t require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.
– Mother Teresa
Human rights are not a privilege conferred by the government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity.
– Mother Teresa
Good works are links that form a chain of love.
– Mother Teresa
Quotations of Mother Teresa
What we sometimes consider a stumbling block is rather a rock we can step on.
– Mother Teresa
Love your mother, the most beautiful person on this earth. Our best critic, yet our strongest supporter.
– Mother Teresa
It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.
– Mother Teresa
Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do “nothing for you”.
– Mother Teresa
When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love.
– Mother Teresa
The highest form of worship is to find the least among you and treat them like Jesus.
– Mother Teresa
God does not require that we be successful only that we are faithful.
– Mother Teresa
I never add up. I only subtract from the total dying. It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.
– Mother Teresa
The way you help heal the world is that you start with your own family.
– Mother Teresa
Whatever our religion, we know that if we really want to love, we must first learn to forgive before anything else.
– Mother Teresa
I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper’s wounds I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?
– Mother Teresa
If you have a sick or lonely person at home, be there; maybe just to hold a hand, maybe just to give a smile, which is the greatest, the most beautiful work.
– Mother Teresa
There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste when I see people throwing away things that we could use.
– 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.
– Mother Teresa
Cling to the Rosary as the creeper clings to the tree, for without Our Lady we cannot stand.
– Mother Teresa
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.
– Mother Teresa
Quotes by Mother Teresa
The greatest science in the world, in heaven and on earth, is love.
– Mother Teresa
Joy to be fruitful has to be shared.
– Mother Teresa
Please choose the way of peace…In the short term, there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain, and loss of life your weapons will cause.
– Mother Teresa
Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.
– Mother Teresa
My mother and sister must be very happy to be home with God, and I am sure their love and prayers are always with me. When I go home to God, for death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.
– Mother Teresa
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.
– Mother Teresa
I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.
– Mother Teresa
Smile at each other. Smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other – it doesn’t matter who it is – and that will help to grow up in greater love for each other.
– Mother Teresa
The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.
– Mother Teresa
The success of love is in loving – it is not in the result of loving. Of course, it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out the way or not does determine the value of what we have done.
– Mother Teresa
Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.
– Mother Teresa
Listen in silence because if your heart is full of other things you cannot hear the voice of God.
– Mother Teresa
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.
– Mother Teresa
Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember the pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus – a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you.
– Mother Teresa
The profound joy of the heart is like a magnet that indicates the path of life.
– Mother Teresa
We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
– Mother Teresa
Sayings from Mother Teresa
Love to be real, it must cost – it must hurt – it must empty us of self.
– Mother Teresa
We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
– Mother Teresa
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
– Mother Teresa
At the end of life, we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in”.
– Mother Teresa
There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.
– Mother Teresa
How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.
– Mother Teresa
I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.
– Mother Teresa
None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.
– Mother Teresa
The child is the beauty of God present in the world, that greatest gift to a family.
– Mother Teresa
I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.
– Mother Teresa
Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begin the disruption of peace of the world.
– Mother Teresa
Don’t expect your friend to be a perfect person but, help your friend to become a perfect person.
– Mother Teresa
The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others.
– Mother Teresa
Spread love everywhere you go; first of all in your house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next-door neighbor. Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.
– Mother Teresa
God will never, never, never let us down if we have faith and put our trust in Him. He will always look after us. So we must cleave to Jesus. Our whole life must simply be woven into Jesus.
– Mother Teresa
If you can’t do great things, do little things with great love. If you can’t do them with great love, do them with a little love. If you can’t do them with a little love, do them anyway.
– Mother Teresa
Famous Mother Teresa Quotes
There should be less talk … take a broom and clean someone’s house. That says enough.
– Mother Teresa
There is no key to happiness; the door is always open.
– Mother Teresa
At the heart of silence is prayer. At the heart of prayer is faith. At the heart of faith is life. At the heart of life is service.
– Mother Teresa
Each of us is merely a small instrument; all of us, after accomplishing our mission, will disappear.
– Mother Teresa
Make us worthy Lord to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands this day their daily bread and by our understanding love, give peace and joy.
– Mother Teresa
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted are the most terrible poverty.
– Mother Teresa
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 piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love.
– Mother Teresa
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use violence to get what they want.
– Mother Teresa
Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.
– Mother Teresa
There is a famine in America. Not a famine of food, but of love, of truth, of life.
– Mother Teresa
The openness of our hearts and minds can be measured by how wide we draw the circle of what we call family.
– Mother Teresa
Be happy at the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.
– Mother Teresa
It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself.
– Mother Teresa
Life isn’t about the cherished moments; it is also about the hard ones, just knowing each day, that you will arise with the bright shining sun in your eyes and end with the cool breeze upon your face as you slowly reflect on the day that passed by.
– Mother Teresa
We are not here to be successful, we are here to be faithful.
– Mother Teresa
Do things for people not because of who they are or what they do in return, but because of who you are.
– Mother Teresa
Quotes Mother Teresa
We fear the future because we are wasting today.
– Mother Teresa
Joy is the sign of union with God, of God’s presence.
– Mother Teresa
Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore let us be extremely patient with each other’s faults and failures.
– Mother Teresa
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
– Mother Teresa
Don’t let your sins turn into bad habits.
– Mother Teresa
God doesn’t create poverty; we do because we do not share.
– Mother Teresa
If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.
– Mother Teresa
When you have nothing left but God, you have more than enough to start over again.
– Mother Teresa
Do not let the past disturb you just leave everything in the sacred heart, and begin again with joy.
– Mother Teresa
I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.
– Mother Teresa
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
– Mother Teresa
Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your eyes, kindness in your face, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greetings. We are all but His instruments, who do our little bit and pass by. I believe that the way in which an act of kindness is done is as important as the action itself.
– Mother Teresa
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do … but how much love we put in that action.
– Mother Teresa
Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile.
– Mother Teresa
We have not come into the world to be numbered; we have been created for a purpose; for great things: to love and be loved.
– Mother Teresa
Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it.
– Mother Teresa
Quotes of Mother Teresa
Words that do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness
– Mother Teresa
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
– Mother Teresa
Prayer in action is love, love in action is service.
– Mother Teresa
Speak tenderly; let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.
– Mother Teresa
Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile. Smile five times a day at someone you don’t really want to smile at all. Do it for peace.
– Mother Teresa
God loves me. I’m not here just to fill a place, just to be a number. He has chosen me for a purpose. I know it.
– Mother Teresa
There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. We sometimes lose sight of this force when there is suffering, too much pain. Then suddenly, the spirit will emerge through the lives of ordinary people who hear a call and answer in extraordinary ways.
– Mother Teresa
There are so many religions and each one has its different ways of following God. I follow Christ: Jesus is my God, Jesus is my Spouse, Jesus is my Life, Jesus is my only Love, Jesus is my All in All; Jesus is everything.
– Mother Teresa
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
– Mother Teresa
Love until it hurts. Real love is always painful and hurts: then it is real and pure.
– Mother Teresa
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 your love everywhere you go.
– Mother Teresa
Sometimes a good feeling from the inside is worth much more than a beautician.
– Mother Teresa
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
– Mother Teresa
More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.
– Mother Teresa
Silence of the heart is necessary so you can hear God everywhere – in the closing of the door, in the person who needs you, in the birds that sing, in the flowers, in the animals.
– Mother Teresa
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
– Mother Teresa
Famous Quotes from Mother Teresa
Jesus said to love one another. He did not say love the whole world.
– Mother Teresa
Whenever you share the love with others, you will notice the peace that comes to you and to them.
– Mother Teresa
God speaks in the silence of the heart, and we listen. And then we speak to God from the fullness of our heart, and God listens. And this listening and this speaking are what prayer is meant to be.
– Mother Teresa
No matter how tired you are, no matter how physically exhausting this work may be, it’s beautiful to bring a smile into someone’s life, to care for someone in need. What greater joy can there be?
– Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa was a remarkable woman who dedicated her life to helping others. She was born in Macedonia but spent most of her life working in India with the poor, the sick, and the dying. Through her work with the Missionaries of Charity, she inspired many people to do good in the world. Mother Teresa is remembered for her compassion and selflessness. She is an inspiration to us all!
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