“I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?”
―
Mother Teresa
“The Particular End is to carry Christ into the homes and streets of the slums, among the sick, dying, the beggars and the little street children. The sick will be nursed as far as possible in their poor homes. The little children will have a school in the slums. The beggars will be sought and visited in their holes outside the town or on the streets. She would later elaborate and broaden the text to read, “Our particular mission is to labour at the salvation and sanctification of the poorest of the poor, not only in the slums, but also all over the world wherever they may be.”
―
Mother Teresa
“She knows how to suffer and at the same time how to laugh.”
―
Mother Teresa
“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.”
―
Mother Teresa
“I know i am touching the living body of Christ in the broken bodies of the hungry and the suffering.”
―
Mother Teresa
“See how nature - 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.”
―
Mother Teresa
“When you don't have anything, then you have everything.”
―
Mother Teresa
“He has told us that He is the hungry one. He is the naked one. He is the thirsty one. He is the one without a home. He is the one who is suffering. These are our treasures, she said, looking at the rows of pallets in the caravanserai. They are Jesus.”
―
Mother Teresa
“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.”
―
Mother Teresa
“A beautiful death is for people who lived like animals to die like angels—loved and wanted.”
―
Mother Teresa
“Smiling novices. I can hear the music of your laughter of joy. Learn, my children, to be holy, for true holiness consists of doing God's work with a smile.”
―
Mother Teresa
“These are the few 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.”
―
Mother Teresa
“In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East -- especially in India -- I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving -- it is not in the result of loving.
―
Mother Teresa
