Misattributed To Mother Teresa Quotes

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. ~ Mother Teresa

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. ~ Mother Teresa

In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results. In the East
especially in India
I find that people are more content to just be, to just sit around under a banyan tree for half a day chatting to each other. We Westerners would probably call that wasting time. But there is value to it. Being with someone, listening wihtout a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love. The success of love is in the loving
it is not in the result of loving.
These words, taken from the book A Simple Path, are the words of one of the Missionaries of Charity Sisters, not of Mother Teresa. ~ Mother Teresa

I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much. ~ Anonymous

God made the world for the delight of human beings
if we could see His goodness everywhere, His concern for us, His awareness of our needs: the phone call we've waited for, the ride we are offered, the letter in the mail, just the little things He does for us throughout the day. As we remember and notice His love for us, we just begin to fall in love with Him because He is so busy with us
you just can't resist Him. I believe there's no such thing as luck in life, it's God's love, it's His. ~ Mother Teresa

I wish there was something more that performers could do other than get out there and sing at benefit performances. I wish I felt that if I had an empty room I'd like to bring in someone and make it a hospice, but I'm not Mother Teresa. I can't do that. ~ Bea Arthur

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. ~ Mother Teresa

Our life of contemplation shall retain the following characteristics:
- missionary: by going out physically or in spirit in search of souls all over the universe.
- contemplative: by gathering the whole universe at the very center of our hearts where the Lord of the universe abides, and allowing the pure water of divine grace to flow plentifully and unceasingly from the source itself, on the whole of his creation.
- universal: by praying and contemplating with all and for all, especially with and for the spiritually poorest of the poor. ~ Mother Teresa

Before you speak, it is necessary for you to listen, for God speaks in the silence of the heart. ~ Mother Teresa

We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, killings, of wars, or of hatred ... If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other? ~ Mother Teresa

Holiness is not a luxury for the few; it is not just for some people. It is meant for you and for me and for all of us. It is a simple duty, because if we learn to love, we learn to be holy. ~ Mother Teresa

...to bring souls to God- and God to souls. ~ Mother Teresa

Why do people often feel bad in good environments and good in bad environments? Why did Mother Teresa think that affluent Westerners often seemed poorer than the Calcutta poor, the poorest of the poor? The paradox comes to pass because the impoverishments and enrichments of a self in a world are not necessarily the same as the impoverishments and enrichments of an organism in an environment. ~ Walker Percy

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

Peace and war begin at home. If we truly want peace in the world, let us begin by loving one another in our own families. If we want to spread joy, we need for every family to have joy. ~ Mother Teresa

Many people are concerned with children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions being killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is the greatest destroyer of peace today- abortion which brings people to such blindness. ~ Mother Teresa

When we come face to face with God, we are going to be judged on how much we loved. ~ Mother Teresa

Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing. ~ Mother Teresa

We must free ourselves to be filled by God. Even God cannot fill what is full. ~ Mother Teresa

I feel strongly that Mother Teresa's life has a great message for young people. We so often feel powerless to do anything about the many problems in the world around us. We are so often left to wonder whether one person can possibly make a difference. Mother Teresa said yes, we can. Her life was resounding proof that it is possible ~ Craig Kielburger

Love cannot remain by itself - it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action and that action is service. ~ Mother Teresa

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

The world today is hungry Not only for bread But hungry for love; Hungry to be wanted, Hungry to be loved ... ~ Mother Teresa

This time of year," she said, "people's consciences gnaw at them. They give away truckloads of canned goods and quote Dickens and wring their hands over the 'less fortunate.'" We boarded the Metro and took seats perpendicular to each other. "But God forbid anyone should address why they're poor in the first place, or try to change the structures that keep them poor. Then the 'less fortunate' turn into 'welfare queens' and 'derelicts.' But if I were a lobbyist whoring on behalf of some transnational corporation, I'd never hear the word 'derelict.'"

"So when it comes to taking care of poor people," I said, "if Mother Teresa is the Hallmark card, then you're the electric bill. ~ Jeri Smith-Ready

Of course that was before reality TV, Twitter, Twaddle, and the like managed to reduce the average attention span of most of the world's population to two minutes, wither our long-term memory to fourteen months, and convince us that the most admirable of all individuals are not the likes of George Washington, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Jonas Salk, Mother Teresa, and Nikola Tesla, but instead whatever celebrity just won Dancing with the Stars and whatever dancing cat just drew ten million hits for its YouTube video. ~ Dean Koontz

Be faithful in the little things, for in them our strength lies. To the good God nothing is little, because He is so great and we are so small. ~ Mother Teresa

To fear is to expect punishment. To love is to know we are immersed not in darkness, but in light. ~ Mother Teresa

She talked about work; he talked about school. Carmella mentioned that she might be up for a promotion by the end of the year, and Adam said that Group, in the end, might work out after all. And during that whole time, they told each other everything except for the part that they didn't. Mother and son were as honest as two people lying to each other could be. ~ Teresa Toten

Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration with exposition needs a great push. People ask me: 'What will convert America and save the world?' My answer is prayer. What we need is for every parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in holy hours of prayer. ~ Mother Teresa

As each Sister is to become a Co-Worker of Christ in the slums, each ought to understand what God and the Missionaries of Charity expect from her. Let Christ radiate and live his life in her and through her in the slums. Let the poor, seeing her, be drawn to Christ and invite him to enter their homes and their lives. Let the sick and suffering find in her a real angel of comfort and consolation. Let the little ones of the streets cling to her because she reminds them of him, the friend of the little ones. ~ Mother Teresa

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. ~ Mother Teresa

Do not worry about why problems exist in the world - just respond to people's needs. ~ Mother Teresa

There is no key to happiness; the door is always open ~ Mother Teresa

We want to create hope for the person ... we must give hope, always hope. ~ Mother Teresa

It's a world full of terror and beauty (here her writing became so small Meggie could hardly make it out) and I could always understand why Dustfinger felt homesick for it.
The last sentence worried Meggie, but when she looked anxiously at her mother, Teresa smiled and reached for her hand. I was far, far more homesick for you two, she wrote on the palm of it, and Meggie closed her fingers over the words as if to hold them fast. She read them again and again on the long drive back to Elinor's house, and it was many days before they faded. ~ Cornelia Funke

Give your hands to serve and your hearts to love. ~ Mother Teresa

During a recent lunch with a close friend who is also the mother of two young children, Diana told of an incident which underlines not only the current state of her relationship with her husband but also the protective nature of her son William. She told her friend that the week that Buckingham Palace decided to announce the separation of the Duke and Duchess of York was understandably a trying time for her. She had lost an amicable companion and was acutely aware that the public spotlight would once again fall on her marriage. Yet her husband seemed unmoved by the furore surrounding the separation. He had spent a week touring various stately homes, gathering material for a book he is writing on gardening. When he returned to Kensington Palace he failed to see why his wife should feel strained and rather depressed. He airily dismissed the departure of the Duchess of York and launched, as usual, into a disapproving appraisal of Diana's public works, especially her visit to see Mother Teresa in Rome. Even their staff, by now used to these altercations, were dismayed by this attitude and felt some sympathy when Diana told her husband that unless he changed his attitude towards her and the job she is doing she would have to reconsider her position. In tears, she went upstairs for a bath. While she was regaining her composure, Prince William pushed a handful of paper tissues underneath the bathroom door. "I hate to see you sad," he said. ~ Andrew Morton

It takes oil to keep the lamps burning. ~ Mother Teresa

The point is to do something, however small, and show you care through your actions by giving your time. ~ Mother Teresa

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. ~ 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

Love has a hem to her garment that reaches to the very dust. It sweeps the stains from the streets and lanes, and because it can, it must. ~ Mother Teresa