Mother Teresa Quotes

252 Sourced Quotes

It is very important that children learn from their fathers and mothers how to love one another- not in the school, not from the teacher, but from you. It is very important that you share with your children the joy of that smile. There will be misunderstandings; every family has its cross, its suffering. Always be the first to forgive with a smile. Be cheerful, be happy.

Mother Teresa
We must become holy, not because we want to feel holy, but because Christ must be able to live his life fully in us.

Mother Teresa
I heard the call to give up all and follow Christ into the slums to serve Him among the poorest of the poor. It was an order.

Mother Teresa
There should be less talk. A preaching point is not a meeting point.

Mother Teresa
Prayer does not demand that we interrupt our work, but that we continue working as if it were a prayer.

Mother Teresa
The family that prays together stays together, and if they stay together they will love one another as God has loved each one of them. And works of love are always works of peace.

Mother Teresa
If you are hungry to hear the voice of God, you will hear. To hear, you have to cut out all other things.

Mother Teresa
Silence came before creation, and the heavens were spread without a word

Mother Teresa
The time we spend in having our daily audience with God is the most precious part of the whole day.

Mother Teresa
If sometimes our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not that God didn't care for them, but because you and I didn't give, were not an instrument of love in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing; because we did not recognize him, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise, in the hungry man, in the lonely man, in the homeless child, and seeking for shelter.

Mother Teresa
What we sometimes consider a stumbling block is rather a rock we can step on.

Mother Teresa
You can pray while you work. Work doesn't stop prayer and prayer doesn't stop work. It requires only that small raising of the mind to him: I love you God, I trust you, I believe in you, I need you now. Small things like that. They are wonderful prayers.

Mother Teresa
Our progress in holiness depends on God and ourselves - on God's grace and on our will to be holy.

Mother Teresa
On certain continents poverty is more spiritual than material, a poverty that consists of loneliness, discouragement, and the lack of meaning in life.

Mother Teresa
Self knowledge puts us on our knees, and it is very necessary for love. For knowledge of God gives love, and knowledge of self gives humility

Mother Teresa
Faith is a gift of God. Without it there would be no life. And our work, to be fruitful, and to be all for God, and to be beautiful, has to be built of faith. Faith in Christ who has said, I was hungry, I was naked, I was sick, and I was homeless, and you ministered to me! On these words of His all our work is based.

Mother Teresa
The joy of Jesus will be my strength - it will be in my heart. Every person I meet will see it in my work; my walk, my prayer - in everything.

Mother Teresa
I have never found a problem with people from different religions praying together. What I have found is that people are just hungry for God, and be they Christian or Muslim we invite them to pray with us.

Mother Teresa
If our poor die of hunger, it is not because God does not care for them. Rather, it is because neither you nor I are generous enough. It is because we are not instruments of love in the hands of God. We do not recognize Christ when once again He appears to us in the hungry man, in the lonely woman, in the child who is looking for a place to get warm.

Mother Teresa
We need to give Christ a chance to make use of us, to be His word and His work, to share His food and His clothing in the world today. If we do not radiate the light of Christ around us, the sense of the darkness that prevails in the world will increase.

Mother Teresa
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary.

Mother Teresa
God has identified himself with the hungry, the sick, the naked, the homeless; hunger not only for bread, but for love, for care, to be somebody to someone; nakedness, not for clothing only, but nakedness of that compassion that very few people give to the unknown; homelessness, not only just for a shelter made from stone but for that homelessness that comes from having no one to call your own.

Mother Teresa
I feel called to help individuals, to love each human being. I never think in terms of crowds in general but in terms of persons. Were I to think about crowds, I would never begin anything.

Mother Teresa
It is only by frequent deaths of ourselves and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully.

Mother Teresa
Make sure that you let God's grace work in your souls by accepting whatever He gives you, and giving Him whatever He takes from you. True holiness consists in doing God's work with a smile.

Mother Teresa
In vocal prayer we speak to God; in mental prayer he speaks to us. It is then that God pours Himself into us.

Mother Teresa
May God give back to you in love all the love you have given.

Mother Teresa
Prayer is as necessary as the air, as the blood in our bodies, as anything to keep us alive-to keep us alive to the grace of God.

Mother Teresa
Let us remain as empty as possible so that God can fill us up.

Mother Teresa
In the silence of our hearts, God speaks of His love; with our silence, we allow Jesus to love us.

Mother Teresa