She was born as Anjezรซ Gonxhe Bojaxhiu on 26 August 1910. To the world, she was known as Mother Teresa, who died 5 September 1997. Today, she is Saint Teresa of Calcutta. She lived an influential, purposeful life, and she had a lot to say. Here are some of the most touching Mother Teresa quotes about life, love, kindness, giving, war, poverty, and charity.
Table of Contents
Mother Teresa quotes about love and kindness
Do extraordinary things with love.
When we come face to face with God, we are going to be judged on how much we loved.
We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I donโt know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will NOT ask, โHow many good things have you done in your life?โ Rather he will ask, โHow much LOVE did you put into what you did?โ
Go out into the world today and love the people you meet. Let your presence light new light in the hearts of people.
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Jesus said love one another. He didnโt say love the whole world.
Let us all smile at each other for a smile is the beginning of love.
By our life and deeds of love, we are making the Church fully present in the world today.
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.
The fruit of faith is love, and the fruit of love is serviceโฆspread love everywhere u go.
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
Spread the love of God through your life but only use words when necessary.
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.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one.
I donโt do great things. I do small things with great love.
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.
Nothing makes you happier than when you really reach out in mercy to someone who is badly hurt.
In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love.
Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.
No, I wouldnโt touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.
Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
Whenever you share love with others, youโll notice the peace that comes to you and to them.
The success of love is in the loving โ 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 that way or not does NOT determine the value of what we have done.
There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread.
The openness of our hearts and minds can be measured by how wide we draw the circle of what we call family.
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.
It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.
If we 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.
Peace begins with a smile.
The fruit of love is service, which is compassion in action.
If you canโt feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
Intense love does not measure, it just gives.
Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
Mother Teresa quotes about giving
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.
We have to possess before we can give.
A way of satisfying our brethrensโ hunger is to share with them whatever we have โ to share with them until we ourselves feel what they feel.
The less we have, the more we give. Seems absurd, but itโs the logic of love.
At the moment of death we will not be judged according to the number of good deeds we have done or by the diplomas we have received in our lifetime. We will be judged according to the love we have put into our work.
If you give what you do not need, it is not giving.
The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others.
Mother Teresa's inspirational quotes
Be happy in the moment, thatโs enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.
Be faithful in little things, for in them your strength lies.
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Itโs not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.
I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.
We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion.
Profound joy of the heart is like a magnet that indicates the path of life.
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
A life not lived for others is not a life.
Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.
Be kind to each other. It is better to commit faults with gentleness than to work miracles with unkindness.
Some people come in our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
Good works are links that form a chain of love.
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it.
You are greater than you know.
Do not allow yourselves to be disheartened by any failure as long as you have done your best.
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.
We fear the future because we are wasting today.
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.
Mother Teresa quotes about life
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway.
The greatest mistake is to think you are too strong to fall into temptation. Put your finger in the fire and it will burn. So we have to go through the fire.
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.
If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers.
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
One filled with the joy preaches without preaching.
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, never.
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
Your true character is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do โNothingโ for you.
People are generally irrational, unreasonable and selfish. They deserve to be loved, anyway.
I know I am touching the living body of Christ in the broken bodies of the hungry and the suffering.
Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it.
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.
Work without love is slavery.
Life is a challenge, we must take it.
There are many people who can do big things, but there are very few people who will do the small things.
I never get mixed up in what governments should or should not do. Instead of spending time [on] those questions, I say, let me do [something] now.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway.
Sometimes a good feeling from inside is worth much more than a beautician.
The first requirement for prayer is silence. People of prayer are people of silence.
If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.
I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.
We must never forget that we are bound toward perfection and should aim ceaselessly at it.
A beautiful death is for people who lived like animals to die like angelsโloved and wanted.
When you donโt have anything, then you have everything.
How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.
We must make our homes centers of compassion and forgive endlessly.
Doctors can heal the body, but it is music that uplifts the spirit.
The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family.
Live simply so others may simply live.
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use violence to get what they want.
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.
If we worry too much about ourselves, we wonโt have time for others.
If we are humble, nothing will change us, neither praise, nor discouragement.
We are not called to be successful, but faithful.
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones โ the ones at home.
Lifeโs a song, sing it.
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.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best youโve got anyway.
I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.
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.
We must never be afraid to be a sign of contradiction for the world.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
Do not worry about why problems exist in the world โ just respond to peopleโs needs.
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.
I fear just one thing: Money! Greed was what motivated Judas to sell Jesus.
If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.
I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.
Together we can do great things.
You may be exhausted with work, you may even kill yourself, but unless your work is interwoven with love, it is useless. To work without love is slavery.
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.
The first step to becoming is to will it.
There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter.
There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.
Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
And whatever you did to the least of my brethren, you did it to me.
One of the realities weโre all called to go through is to move from repulsion to compassion and from compassion to wonderment.
Mother Teresa's selfless quotes about God and religion
God doesnโt require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.
He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your weakness.
I am only a pencil in the hand of God, but it is He who writes.
Words that do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.
Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.
May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.
We are called to be contemplatives by seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, everywhere, all the time.
We interfere with Godโs plans when we push in someone or something else not suitable for us. Be strict with yourself, and then be very strict with what you are receiving from the outside.
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.
When you have nothing left but God, you have more than enough to start over again.
We are all pencils in the hand of God.
The Lord likes small things best, especially those done with love.
God is everywhere and in everything and without Him we cannot exist.
Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.
God speaks in the silence of the heart.
Cheerfulness is a sign of a generous and mortified person who forgetting all things, even herself, tries to please her God in all she does for souls. Cheerfulness is often a cloak which hides a life of sacrifice and a continual union with God.
Love demands sacrifice. But if we love until it hurts, God will give us His peace and joyโฆ. Suffering in itself is nothing; but suffering shared with Christโs Passion is a wonderful gift.
You will never truly realize God is all you need until He becomes all you have.
True love is love that causes us pain, that hurts, and yet brings us joy. That is why we must pray to God and ask Him to give us the courage to love.
Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart.
I know God wonโt give me anything I canโt handle. I just wish he didnโt trust me so much.
Poverty was not created by God. It is we who have caused it, you and I through our egotism.
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature โ trees, flowers, grass grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.
God hasnโt called us to be successful, just faithful.
God has not called me to be successful. He has called me to be faithful.
Do you want to do something beautiful for God? There is a person who needs you. This is your chance.
It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself.
I have never been in a war before, but I have seen famine and death. I was asking (myself) what do they feel when they do this? I donโt understand it. They are all children of God. Why do they do it?
People are hungry for the Word of God that will give peace, that will give unity, that will give joy. But you cannot give what you donโt have. Thatโs why it is necessary to deepen your life of prayer.
Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of Christ risen.
Smiling novices. I can hear the music of your laughter of joy. Learn, my children, to be holy, for true holiness consists of doing Godโs work with a smile.
Humility is truth, therefore in all sincerity, we must be able to look up and say, I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. By yourself you can do nothing, have nothing but sin, weakness and misery. All the gifts of nature and grace you have them from God.
Mother Teresa's humanitarian quotes about war and peace
Peace begins with smile.
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace.
Let us not use bombs and guns to overcome the world. Let us use love and compassion. Peace begins with a smile.
If now we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten how to see God in one another.
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 begins the disruption of peace of the world.
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, or never will justify the suffering, pain and loss of life your weapons will cause.
Peace and war start within oneโs own home. If we really want peace for the world, let us start by loving one another within our families. Sometimes it is hard for us to smile at one another.
We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, killings, of wars, or of hatredโฆ If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other?
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Mother Teresa quotes about poverty and suffering
In the developed countries there is a poverty of intimacy, a poverty of spirit, of loneliness, of lack of love. There is no greater sickness in the world today than that one.
There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.
Not handouts, but rather hands held.
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.
The poor give us much more than we give them. Theyโre such strong people, living day to day with no food. And they never curse, never complain. We donโt have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them.
I embrace suffering even before it actually comes, and like this Jesus and I live in love.
The poor are great! The poor are wonderful! The poor are very generous! They give us much more than what we give them.
We need to realize that poverty doesnโt only consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it is a tremendous hunger for human dignity. We need to love and to be someone for someone else.
The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.
Loneliness is the most terrible form of poverty.
