Mother Teresa (1910-1997)
Mother Teresa was born at Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Yugoslavia. She joined an Irish order of nuns serving in Calcutta, West Bengal, India, with a purpose to serve the poor. She received medical training in Ireland and India. She founded the Missionaries of Charity and focused on serving the dying, along with many other projects at the same time. For her contributions to the upliftment of the society she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She died in 1997 after long illnesses and was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19, 2003.
Mother Teresa Quotations And Favorite Sayings
- Love is doing small things with great love.
- Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person.
- Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
- 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.
- There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives – the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them.
- There should be less talk. A preaching point is not a meeting point.
- The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved – they are Jesus in disguise.
- In the West there is loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways it is worse than our poor in Calcutta. (Commonweal, Dec 19, 1997)
- It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.
- The poor give us much more than we give them. They’re such strong people, living day to day with no food. and they never curse, never complain. We don’t have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them.
- I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper’s wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?
- I do not pray for success. I ask for faithfulness.
- 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.
- If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
- I work for the people, because I feel I must do something.
- People are generally irrational, unreasonable and selfish. They deserve to be loved, anyway.
- It’s law of nature that the good you do, will be forgotten tomorrow. But the good work must be carried on.
- Your honesty and frankness will expose you to problems but your work should not stop for it means the world to so many people.
- Years of your hard work may be destroyed overnight, that should not deter you from building upon your hard work.
- Despite giving your best to the world, you may be kicked in the teeth. Give the best you’ve got anyway.
- Places like Calcutta can be seen all over the world if you have eyes to see.
- Developed countries suffer from poverty of understanding, poverty of will, of loneliness, of lack of love and spirit. There is no greater disease in the world today than this.
- When you don’t have anything, then you have everything.
- The person who gives with a smile is the best giver because God loves a cheerful giver.
- It is not the size of our actions but the amount of love and care that is put into them that matters.
- You should never lose heart. God is merciful and kind- he has endowed you with the best gift- smile, which can make millions happy.
- Show kindness through your face, your eyes, your smile and through the warmth of your greetings. You must bear a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.