Mother Teresa was known around the world for her efforts in founding the Missionaries of Charity in 1950, which brought much-needed attention to the condition of the impoverished and destitute.
Mother Teresa contributed to the establishment of homes for individuals dying of HIV/AIDS, leprosy, and tuberculosis during her lifetime, as well as providing food, water, and healthcare to India’s poorest men, women, and children. St. Teresa of Calcutta was officially canonised by the Roman Catholic Church in 2016 after her death on September 5, 1997.
She is still a divisive figure, hailed and vilified for her humanitarian work, her outspoken views on abortion and contraception, and the deplorable circumstances in the hospices she founded.
Mother Teresa’s messages of love, hope, and generosity are known and echoed all over the world. We’ve compiled 115 of Mother Teresa’s most inspiring quotations to motivate you to serve others and improve the world.
Life is a challenge, we must take it.
One truly must have suffered oneself to help others.
There’s nothing more calming in difficult moments that knowing there’s some one fighting with you.
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
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.
If you give what you do not need, it is not giving.
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 have nothing left but God, you have more than enough to start over again.
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
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.
It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.
God made the world for the delight of human beings– if we could see His goodness everywhere, His concern for us, His awareness of our needs: the phone call we’ve waited for, the ride we are offered, the letter in the mail, just the little things He does for us throughout the day. As we remember and notice His love for us, we just begin to fall in love with Him because He is so busy with us — you just can’t resist Him. I believe there’s no such thing as luck in life, it’s God’s love, it’s His.
The person who gives with a smile is the best giver because God loves a cheerful giver.
If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.
Work without love is slavery.
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.
May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.
Spread the love of God through your life but only use words when necessary.
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.
Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.
Give, but give until it hurts
Intense love does not measure it just gives.
I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Ask yourself “How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?” Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love.
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.
Joy is a net of love in which you can catch souls.
Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.
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, kindness in your smile.
Life is a game, play it.
The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.
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 don’t have anything, then you have everything.
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.
If we pray, we will believe; If we believe, we will love; If we love, we will serve.
I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
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.
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
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.
A life not lived for others is not a life.
If I look at the mass I will never act.
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.
Go out into the world today and love the people you meet. Let your presence light new light in the hearts of people.
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.
Prayer is the mortar that holds our house together.
A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love. She gives most who gives with joy.
I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.
What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.
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 degrees, this work and that work. We have been created in order to love and to be loved.
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
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 am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’ rather he will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did?
Live simply so others may simply live.
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.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.
Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.
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.
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 greatest science in the world; in heaven and on earth; is love.
We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully.
He who is faultless does not care for the opinion of others.
In the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world.
Everything that is not given is lost.
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.
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 have more often as my companion ‘darkness.’ And when the night becomes very thick- and it seems to me as if I will end up in hell – then I simply offer myself to Jesus.
Some people come in our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons.
Profound joy of the heart is like a magnet that indicates the path of life.
We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion.
It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.
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.
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 becuase I love Jesus.
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
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.
There are many people who can do big things, but there are very few people who will do the small things.
Never be so busy as not to think of others.
I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness.
Jesus said love one another. He didn’t say love the whole world.
The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family.
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.
There should be less talk; a preaching point is not a meeting point. What do you do then? Take a broom and clean someone’s house. That says enough.
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.
Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand.
One filled with joy preaches without preaching.
Each of us is merely a small instrument; all of us, after accomplishing our mission, will disappear.
The trees, the flowers, the plants grow in silence. The stars, the sun, the moon move in silence. Silence gives us a new perspective.
The success of love is in the 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 that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done.
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 want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
God gives us things to share, God doesn’t give us things to hold.
In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love.
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.
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
Jesus gives me the opportunity to feed Him by feeding those who are hungry, to clothe Him by clothing those who are naked, to heal Him by caring for those who are sick, and to offer Him shelter by housing those who are homeless and unwanted.
At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving the others with God’s own love and concern.
Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
People are unrealistic, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Peace begins with a smile.
If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.
I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.
When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love.
Prayer in action is love, love in action is service.
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
Never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly.
I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.
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.