Mother Teresa lived a life devoted to poverty and the poor and she left many quotes behind to teach us. She was a saint – literally! The Catholic church bestowed that honor in 2016. Rightly so, her words and deeds can help us understand those in poverty and give us wisdom as we strive to help the poor.
All the quotes are from Mother Teresa’s book – No Greater Love. Page noted.
Material Things
“We know what that poverty means, first of all, to be hungry for bread, to need clothing, and to not have a home. But there is a far greater kind of poverty. It means being unwanted, unloved, and neglected. It means having no one to call your own.” Page 101.
“In every country there are poor. On certain continents poverty is more spiritual than material, a poverty that consists of loneliness, discouragement, and the lack of meaning in life.” Page 94.
“Poverty is freedom. It is a freedom so that what I possess doesn’t own me, so that what I possess doesn’t hold me down, so that my possessions don’t keep me from sharing or giving of myself.” Page 96.
The Dignity of the Poor
“Poverty doesn’t only consist of being hungry for bread, but rather it is a tremendous hunger for human dignity. We need to love and to be somebody for someone else. This is where we make our mistake and shove people aside.” Page 93.
“Not only have we denied the poor a piece of bread, but by thinking that they have no worth and leaving them abandoned in the streets, we have denied them the human dignity that is rightfully theirs as children of God.” Page 93.
The Value of the Poor
“The poor are wonderful people. They have their own dignity, which we can easily see. Usually the poor are not known, and therefore one is not able to discover their dignity. But the poor have above all great courage to lead the life they lead. ” Page 102.
Find the Poor Wherever They Are
“Know the poorest of the poor are among your neighbors, in your neighborhoods, in your town, in your city, perhaps in your own family. When you know them, that will lead you to love them. And love will impel you to serve them. ” Page 102.
“It is too easy simply to talk or concern ourselves with the poor who are far away. It is much harder and, perhaps, more challenging to turn our attention and concern toward the poor who live right next door to us.” Page 94.
The Value of Giving
“The poor do not need our compassion or our pity; they need our help. What they give to us is more than what we give to them.” Page 102.
“I think that a person who lives with riches, who lives with the worry of riches, is actually very poor. However, if such a person puts her money at the service of others, then she is rich, very rich.” Page 47.
“We have no right to judge the rich. For our part, what we desire is not a class struggle but a class encounter, in which the rich save the poor, and the poor save the rich.” Page 97-98.
Courage to Accept Each Other
“Let us be very sincere in our dealings with each other and have the courage to accept each other as we are. Do not be surprised or become preoccupied at each other’s failure; rather see and find the good in each other, for each one of us is created in the image of God. Keep in mind that our community is not composed of those who are already saints, but of those who are trying to become saints. Therefore, let us be extremely patient with each other’s faults and failures.” Page 45.
The difficulty of the Spiritually Poor
“When I pick up a hungry person from the streets, I give him rice and bread, and I have satisfied that hunger. But a person who is shut out, feels unwanted by society, unloved and terrified – how much more difficult is it to remove that hunger?” Page 94.
“You in the West have the spiritually poorest of the poor much more than you have the physically poor. Often among the rich are very spiritually poor people. I find it is easy to give a plate of rice to a hungry person, to furnish a bed to a person who has no bed, but to console or to remove the bitterness, anger, and loneliness that comes from being spiritually deprived, that takes a long time.” Page 94-95.
Power of Joy and Kindness
“Kindness has converted more people than zeal, science, or eloquence. Holiness grows so fast where there is kindness. The world is lost for want of sweetness and kindness. Do not forget we need each other.” Page 47.
“We will never know how much good just a simple smile can do.” Page 45.
“We tell people how kind, forgiving, and understanding God is, but are we the living proof? Can they really see this kindness, this forgiveness, this understanding alive in us?” Page 45.
She Was a Humble Servant
From the forward of the book by Thomas Moore:
“Her stories are obviously not meant to convince us of her religious convictions; rather, they simply demonstrate how human beings, when given the most basic kinds of love and attention, find significant transformation and discover their humanity, dignity, and at least momentary happiness.” Page xiii.
Mother Teresa’s Quotes Enlighted Us
Mother Teresa’s quotes on poverty and the poor ignite our passions and desires. We all have a longing to help our fellow man. She explains why and what actions we should take. We are enlightened. She is a saint indeed.
This blog supports the Ultimate Guide on How to Help the Poor – The philosophy