“How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers."
―
Mother Teresa
“As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves but does not speak … I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have free hand.”
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Mother Teresa
“Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in accepting and following the will of God.”
―
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
“Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self.”
―
Mother Teresa
“It is our emptiness and lowliness that God needs and not our plenitude. These are a few of the ways we can practice humility:
Speak as little as possible of oneself.
Mind one's own business.
Avoid curiosity.
Do not want to manage other people's affairs.
Accept contradiction and correction cheerfully.
Pass over the mistakes of others.
Accept blame when innocent.
Yield to the will of others.
Accept insults and injuries.
Accept being slighted, forgotten, and disliked.
Be kind and gentle even under provocation.
Do not seek to be specially loved and admired.
Never stand on one's dignity.
Yield in discussion even when one is right.
Choose always the hardest.”
―
Mother Teresa
“One filled with joy preaches without preaching.”
―
Mother Teresa
“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. 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
“I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?”
―
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
“What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.”
―
Mother Teresa
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”
―
Mother Teresa
“God doesn'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.”
―
Mother Teresa