Mary Teresa Bojaxhiu, or most commonly recognized as Mother Teresa, was and will continue to be an inspiration and an icon of selflessness to millions of people, for her lifelong commitment to giving “wholehearted free service to the poorest of the poor.” She always placed common humanity over any religious divisions.
Her selfless actions and humble character made her a global symbol of charitable work, and the love and kindness she bestowed upon the poverty-stricken individuals of all faiths gained her a Nobel Peace Prize in the year 1979.
Though some of her views were deemed controversial by some people, no one can deny the influence and power of her words and actions. In 2016, Mother Teresa was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.
Here are the top 33 quotes and sayings by Mother Teresa that will surely inspire you to appreciate life and find beauty all around you.
Table of Contents
Mother Teresa Quotes About Love
1. “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”
2. “Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”
3. “Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.”
4. “Intense love does not measure, it just gives.”
5. “Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.”
6. “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”
7. “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”
8. “If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.”
9. “Joy is prayer; joy is a strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”
10. “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 Quotes About God
1. “Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.”
2. “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”
3. “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.”
4. “Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.”
5. “I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.”
6. “There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible.”
Related: Most Inspirational God Quotes (On Courage, Love, Life, Faith…)
Mother Teresa Quotes About Service
1. “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”
2. “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”
3. “Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.”
4. “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”
5. “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”
6. “The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.”
7. “Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.”
8. “I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?”
9. “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.”
10. “One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.”
Mother Teresa, More Quotes And Sayings
1. “Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.”
2. “Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”
3. “Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand.”
4. “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.”
5. “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.”
6. “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.”
7. “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.”
If you’d like to know more about the life and charitable endeavors of Mother Teresa, we would suggest you read, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge and learn why he (Muggeridge) hailed her as a “light which could never be extinguished.”
