Does Mother Teresa and how she dedicated her entire life to serving the poor inspire you? If you’re curious to learn more about the famous missionary and humanitarian, you will like the following collection of Mother Teresa quotes on kindness, love, and helping others. Enjoy reading! And for even more quotes packed with love, have a look at this list of quotes about helping others.
Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, who was commonly known as Mother Teresa, was an Albanian-Indian missionary and nun. She founded the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, which was dedicated to serving the disabled and the poor and operates in Calcutta, India.
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa is known around the world for her selflessness, compassion, and kindness. She is, perhaps, the most well-known humanitarian and charity worker worldwide. Her example has inspired many to dedicate their own lives to serving those in need and to take a more active role in helping others to live a better life.
As a missionary and nun, Mother Teresa always emphasized the importance of actively doing something for others instead of just trying to solve the existing issues with money. By doing so, she is challenged many to reconsider their opinion.
Enjoy this collection of inspirational Mother Teresa quotes
Aside from being of service to others, Mary Teresa helped millions around the world to lead a more selfless life filled with kindness, compassion, and love.
155 Heartwarming Mother Teresa Quotes
If you want to learn more about the person who selflessly helped so many without asking for anything in return, the following quote collection is for you. These deeply inspiring Mother Teresa quotes about being of service to others will help you to better understand the motivation behind her charitable work.
When you read through the following list of quotes, you will notice how powerful the ideas behind her words were and how her actions mirrored what she said.
Here’s our collection of inspirational Mother Teresa quotes
1.
“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”
Mother Teresa
2.
“I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.”
Mother Teresa
3.
“A life not lived for others is not a life.”
Mother Teresa
4.
“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that he didn’t trust me so much.”
Mother Teresa
5.
“Do not allow yourselves to be disheartened by any failure as long as you have done your best.”
Mother Teresa
6.
“Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.”
Mother Teresa
7.
“I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.”
Mother Teresa
8.
“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 the sun in a community.”
Mother Teresa
9.
“If we worry too much about ourselves, we won’t have time for others”
Mother Teresa
10.
“How can there be too many children – That is like saying there are too many flowers.”
Mother Teresa
11.
“Just get together, love one another, bring that peace, that joy, that strength of presence of each other in the home. And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world.”
Mother Teresa
12.
“Joy is the net of love by which we can capture souls. God loves the person who gives with joy. Whoever gives with joy gives more. The best way to show our gratitude to God and to people is to accept with joy.”
Mother Teresa
13.
“Give that child to me. I want it. I will care for it. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.”
Mother Teresa
14.
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
Mother Teresa
15.
“We cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us never bring in the worst problem of all, and that is to destroy love.”
Mother Teresa
16.
“I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. 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.”
Mother Teresa
17.
“Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”
Mother Teresa
18.
“Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
Mother Teresa
19.
“How does peace come – Through works of love. Where does it begin – At home. How does it begin – By praying together. For a family that prays together stays together. And if you stay together, you will love one another as God loves each one of you. For Prayer gives a clean heart and a clean heart can see God. And if you see God in each other, if we have the joy of seeing God in each other, we will love one another. That’s why no color, no religion, no nationality should come between us. For we are all the same children of the same loving hand of God, created for greater things: to love and to be loved. Only we must experience that joy of loving.”
Mother Teresa
20.
“We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully. Do not let a chance pass you by. It is so easy to be proud, harsh, moody and selfish, but we have been created for greater things. Why stoop down to things that will spoil the beauty of our hearts?”
Mother Teresa
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21.
“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”
Mother Teresa
22.
“Be kind to each other. It is better to commit faults with gentleness than to work miracles with unkindness.”
Mother Teresa
23.
“God doesn’t require us to succeed, he only requires that you try.”
Mother Teresa
24.
“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.”
Mother Teresa
25.
“Why must we give ourselves fully to God – Because God has given Himself to us. If God who owes nothing to us is ready to impart to us no less than Himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves – To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God Himself. I for God and God for me. I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way induce God to live for me. Therefore to possess God we must allow Him to possess our soul.”
Mother Teresa
26.
“I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me.”
Mother Teresa
27.
“If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.”
Mother Teresa
28.
“Humility is truth, therefore in all sincerity, we must be able to look up and say, ‘I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.’ By yourself, you can do nothing, have nothing but sin, weakness, and misery. All the gifts of nature and grace you have them from God.”
Mother Teresa
29.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
30.
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
Mother Teresa
31.
“People are hungry for God. People are hungry for love. Are you aware of that – Do you know that – Do you see that – Do you have eyes to see – Quite often we look but we don’t see. We are all passing through this world. We need to open our eyes and see.”
Mother Teresa
32.
“The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy.”
Mother Teresa
33.
“The person who gives with a smile is the best giver because God loves a cheerful giver.”
Mother Teresa
34.
“In light of heaven, the worst suffering on earth, a life full of the most atrocious tortures on earth, will be seen to be no more serious than one night in an inconvenient hotel.”
Mother Teresa
35.
“Works of love begin at home and works of love are works of peace.”
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa quotes on love
36.
“Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do.”
Mother Teresa
37.
“Peace begins with a smile.”
Mother Teresa
38.
“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
39.
“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”
Mother Teresa
40.
“The very fact that God has placed a certain soul in our way is a sign that God wants us to do something for him or her. It is not chance; it has been planned by God. We are bound by conscience to help him or her.”
Mother Teresa
41.
“You can find Calcutta anywhere in the world. You only need two eyes to see. Everywhere in the world, there are people that are not loved, people that are not wanted nor desired, people that no one will help, people that are pushed away or forgotten. And this is the greatest poverty.”
Mother Theresa
42.
“If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive.”
Mother Teresa
43.
“I believe that love begins at home, and if we can create a home for the poor – I think that more and more love will spread. And we will be able through this understanding love to bring peace, be good news to the poor. The poor in our own family first, in our country and in the world.”
Mother Teresa
44.
“I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.”
Mother Teresa
45.
“When we come face to face with God, we are going to be judged on how much we loved.”
Mother Teresa
46.
“A little boy came to me and said ‘I have nothing, I have no money, I have nothing. But I have this piece of chocolate. And you give that, take that with you and you give it to the children in Ethiopia.’ That little child loved with great love, because I think that was the first time that he had a piece of chocolate in his hand. And he gave it. He gave it with joy to be able to share, to remove a little the suffering of someone in far Ethiopia. This is the joy of loving: to give until it hurts.”
Mother Teresa
47.
“Cheerfulness is a sign of a generous and mortified person who forgetting all things, even herself, tries to please her God in all she does for souls. Cheerfulness is often a cloak which hides a life of sacrifice and a continual union with God.”
Mother Teresa
48.
“Let us thank God that we have had this opportunity to come to know each other, and this knowledge of each other has brought us very close. And we will be able to help not only the children of India and Africa, but will be able to help the children of the whole world.”
Mother Teresa
49.
“A beautiful death is for people who lived like animals to die like angels – loved and wanted.”
Mother Teresa
50.
“What we need is to love without getting tired. How does a lamp burn – Through the continuous input of small drops of oil. What are these drops of oil in our lamps – They are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others, our way of being silent, of looking, of speaking, and of acting. Do not look for Jesus away from yourselves. He is not out there; He is in you. Keep your lamp burning, and you will recognize Him.”
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa quotes about charity
51.
“I have picked up from the streets hungry people, and by giving them to eat, by giving them a bed to sleep, I have removed the suffering, but for the lonely, the shut-ins, the unwanted, it’s not so easy. And so there you and I must come forward, and share the joy of loving.”
Mother Teresa
52.
“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
53.
“Why can’t there be love that never gets tired?”
Mother Teresa
54.
“In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love.”
Mother Teresa
55.
“Poverty was not created by God. It is we who have caused it, you and I through our egotism.”
Mother Teresa
56.
“The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others.”
Mother Teresa
57.
“Some time ago in Calcutta we had great difficulty in getting sugar, and I don’t know how the word got around to the children, and a little boy of four years old, Hindu boy, went home and told his parents: I will not eat sugar for three days, I will give my sugar to Mother Teresa for her children. After three days his father and mother brought him to our home. I had never met them before, and this little one could scarcely pronounce my name, but he knew exactly what he had come to do. He knew that he wanted to share his love.”
Mother Teresa
58.
“A way of satisfying our brethren’s hunger is to share with them whatever we have – to share with them until we ourselves feel what they feel.”
Mother Teresa
59.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
60.
“It is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt.”
Mother Teresa
61.
If you are a saint, thank God; if you are a sinner, don’t remain one.”
Mother Teresa
62.
“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
Mother Teresa
63.
“Never feel that you are alone, God is always with you and aware of your struggles.”
Mother Teresa
64.
“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.’„
Mother Teresa
65.
“We must never be afraid to be a sign of contradiction for the world.”
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa quotes on kindness and smiling
66.
“I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish.”
Mother Teresa
67.
“People are unrealistic, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway.”
Mother Teresa
68.
“Never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly.”
Mother Teresa
69.
“Some people come in our life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons.”
Mother Teresa
70.
“We interfere with God’s plans when we push in someone or something else not suitable for us. Be strict with yourself, and then be very strict with what you are receiving from the outside.”
Mother Teresa
71.
“Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity, and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent.”
Mother Teresa
72.
“We must remember that love begins at home and we must also remember that ‘the future of humanity passes through the family.’„
– Mother Teresa
73.
“He who is faultless does not care for the opinion of others.”
Mother Teresa
74.
“If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.”
Mother Teresa
75.
“The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.”
Mother Teresa
76.
“Am I ever angry or frustrated – I only feel angry sometimes when I see waste, when things that we waste are what people need, things that would save them from dying. Frustrated – No, never.”
Mother Teresa
77.
“Sometimes a good feeling from inside is worth much more than a beautician.”
Mother Teresa
78.
“I never get mixed up in what governments should or should not do. Instead of spending time [on]those questions, I say, “Let me do now.”
Mother Teresa
79.
“To the good God nothing is little because He is so great and we so small- that is why He stoops down and takes the trouble to make those little things for us- to give us a chance to prove our love for Him.”
Mother Teresa
80.
“The poor people are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things.”
Mother Teresa
81.
“Faith is a gift from God and he gives it to whomever he chooses”
Mother Theresa
82.
“The Lord likes small things best, especially those done with love.”
Mother Teresa
83.
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Mother Teresa
84.
“Joy is a sign of generosity. When you are full of joy, you move faster and you want to go about doing good to everyone.”
Mother Teresa
85.
“Work without love is slavery.”
Mother Teresa
86.
“Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet come; we must live each day as if it were our last so that when God calls us we already, and prepared, to die with a clean heart.”
Mother Teresa
87.
“When you know how much God is in love with you then you can only live your life radiating that love.”
Mother Teresa
88.
“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
89.
“When a poor person dies of hunger it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.”
Mother Teresa
90.
“When you have nothing left but God, you have more than enough to start over again.”
Mother Teresa
Here are even more Mother Teresa quotes for you
91.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
92.
“He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your weakness.”
Mother Teresa
93.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
94.
“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
Mother Teresa
95.
“If our bones were not sending whispers of doubt to our hearts, there would be no need for prayer at all.”
Mother Teresa
96.
“We have a great deal of worth in the eyes of God. I never tire of saying over and over again that God loves us. It is a wonderful thing that God Himself loves me tenderly. That is why we should have courage, joy, and the conviction that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.”
Mother Teresa
97.
“Life is a challenge, we must take it.”
Mother Teresa
98.
“I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread, I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society–that poverty is so hurtable and so much, and I find that very difficult. Our Sisters are working amongst that kind of people in the West.”
Mother Teresa
99.
“One of the realities we’re all called to go through is to move from repulsion to compassion and from compassion to wonderment.”
Mother Teresa
100.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
101.
“Persuaded of our nothingness and with the blessing of obedience we attempt all things, doubting nothing, for with God all things are possible.”
Mother Teresa
102.
“There’s nothing more calming in difficult moments that knowing there’s someone fighting with you.”
Mother Teresa
103.
“Sometimes people can hunger for more than bread. It is possible that our children, our husband, our wife, do not hunger for bread, do not need clothes, do not lack a house. But are we equally sure that none of them feels alone, abandoned, neglected, needing some affection – That, too, is poverty”
Mother Teresa
104.
“Mothers are at the heart of the family. Children need their mothers. If the mother is there, the children will be there too. For the family to be whole, the children and the mother also need the father to be present in the home.”
Mother Teresa
105.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
106.
“We have been created to love and to be loved, and God has become man to make it possible for us to love as He loved us.”
Mother Teresa
107.
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
Mother Theresa
108.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
109.
“If we pray, we will believe; If we believe, we will love; If we love, we will serve.”
Mother Teresa
110.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
111.
“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”
Mother Teresa
112.
“Life’s a song, sing it.”
Mother Teresa
113.
“Life is beauty, admire it!”
Mother Teresa
114.
“If you become a burning light of justice and peace in the world, then really you will be true to what the founders of this country stood for.”
Mother Teresa
115.
“We will allow the good God to make plans for the future, for yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not yet come, and we have only today to make Him known loved, and served.”
Mother Teresa
116.
“We need to find God and God cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees and flowers and grass—grow in silence. See the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence. The more we receive in silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.”
Mother Teresa
117.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
118.
“I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people. And find out about your next-door-neighbor – do you know who they are?”
Mother Teresa
119.
“I was surprised in the West to see so many young boys and girls given into drugs, and I tried to find out why–why it is like that, and the answer was: Because there is no one in the family to receive them. Father and mother are so busy they have no time. Young parents are in some institution and the child takes back to the street and gets involved in something.”
Mother Teresa
120.
“One evening we went out and we picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible condition–and I told the Sisters: You take care of the other three, I take off this one that looked worse. So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, as she said one word only: ‘Thank you’ – and she died.”
Mother Teresa
121.
“If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers.”
Mother Teresa
122.
“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”
Mother Teresa
123.
“Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.”
Mother Teresa
124.
“Good works are links that form a chain.”
Mother Theresa
125.
“If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.”
Mother Teresa
126.
“Loneliness is the leprosy of the modern world.”
Mother Teresa
127.
“Let us thank God for the opportunity that we all have together today, for this gift of peace that reminds us that we have been created to live that peace.”
Mother Teresa
128.
“I believe that we are not real social workers. We may be doing social work in the eyes of the people, but we are really contemplatives in the heart of the world.”
Mother Teresa
129.
“I go of my free choice, with the blessing of obedience.”
Mother Theresa
130.
“Maybe in our own family we have somebody who is feeling lonely, who is feeling sick, who is feeling worried, and these are difficult days for everybody. Are we there, are we there to receive them, is the mother there to receive the child?”
Mother Teresa
131.
“The other day I received 15 dollars from a man who has been on his back for twenty years, and the only part that he can move is his right hand. And the only companion that he enjoys is smoking. And he said to me: I do not smoke for one week, and I send you this money. It must have been a terrible sacrifice for him, but see how beautiful, how he shared, and with that money I bought bread and I gave to those who are hungry with a joy on both sides, he was giving and the poor were receiving.”
Mother Teresa
132.
“We all thirst for the love of others, that they go out of their way to avoid harming us and to do good to us. This is the meaning of true love, to give until it hurts.”
Mother Teresa
133.
“When you don’t have anything, then you have everything.”
Mother Teresa
134.
“It is a gift of God to us to be able to share our love with others.”
Mother Teresa
135.
“The less we have, the more we give. Seems absurd, but it’s the logic of love.”
Mother Teresa
136.
“These are people who maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home where to live, but they are great people. The poor are very wonderful people.”
Mother Teresa
137.
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
Mother Teresa
138.
“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”
Mother Teresa
139.
“I hope that what you give me comes not from your surplus but it is the fruit of a sacrifice made for the love of God. You must give what costs you, go without something you like, then you will truly be brothers to the poor who are deprived of even the things they need.”
Mother Teresa
140.
“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”
Mother Theresa
141.
“I don’t want you to give me from your abundance, I want that you give me until it hurts.”
Mother Teresa
142.
“We have 24 hours in this presence, and so you and I. You too try to bring that presence of God in your family, for the family that prays together stays together.”
Mother Teresa
143.
“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.”
Mother Teresa
144.
“God gives us things to share, God doesn’t give us things to hold…”
Mother Teresa
145.
“Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.”
Mother Teresa
146.
“What can you do to promote world peace – Go home and love your family.”
Mother Teresa
147.
“I have said that if I don’t go to Heaven for anything else I will be going to Heaven for all the publicity because it has purified me and sacrificed me and made me really ready to go to Heaven.”
Mother Teresa
148.
“Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.”
Mother Teresa
149.
“Last time I was in China they asked me ‘what is a communist to you?’ I said ‘a child of God, my brother my sister.’ And exactly that is what you and I are meant to be: brother, sister.”
Mother Teresa
150.
“If we could only remember that God loves me, and I have an opportunity to love others as he loves me, not in big things, but in small things with great love.”
Mother Teresa
151.
“If you are joyful, do not worry about lukewarmness. Joy will shine in your eyes and in your look, in your conversation and in your countenance. You will not be able to hide it because joy overflows.”
Mother Teresa
152.
“The same loving hand of God has created you, created me, created man of the street, created that leper, that hungry man, that rich man, for that same purpose: to love and to be loved.”
Mother Teresa
153.
“Let us make that one point: That no child will be unwanted, and also that we meet each other always with a smile, especially when it is difficult to smile.”
Mother Teresa
154.
“The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”
Mother Teresa
155.
“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.”
Mother Teresa
We hope you enjoyed this collection of Mother Teresa quotes.
While reading this list of quotes from the well-known humanitarian, you may have noticed how much Mother Teresa highlighted the importance of taking action. She always said that you should not allow yourself to be discouraged by feelings of helplessness.
Instead, she encouraged us all to take action, no matter how small our individual impact is. And if you think about it, if we all started to do something for each other, the world would quickly change.
What are your favorite Mother Teresa quotes?
Let us know in the comment section below what quote inspired you the most. We are excited to hear from you.
Stay victorious!
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