Mother Teresa

Sourced

• The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
  • Interview by Edward W. Desmond in TIME magazine (4 December 1989)

• Holiness is not the luxury of the few; it is a simply duty, for you and for me, because Jesus has very clearly stated, "Be ye holy as my father in heaven is holy." So let us pray for each other that we grow in love for each other, and through this love become holy as Jesus wants us to be for he died out of love for us.
  One day I met a lady who was dying of cancer in a most terrible condition. And I told her, I say, "You know, this terrible pain is only the kiss of Jesus — a sign that you have come so close to Jesus on the cross that he can kiss you." And she joined her hands together and said, "Mother Teresa, please tell Jesus to stop kissing me".
  • Address to the National Prayer Breakfast (3 February 1994).
  • Unsourced variant or paraphrase: I think it is very good when people suffer. To me, that is like the kiss of Jesus.

• But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
  • National Prayer Breakfast speech (Washington, D.C, February 3, 1994).

• I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.
  • As quoted in The Missionary Position (1995) by Christopher Hitchens

• Spread love everywhere you go; first of all in your house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor. 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.
  • As quoted in Worldwide Laws of Life : 200 Eternal Spiritual Principles‎ (1998) by John Templeton, p. 448

Misattributed

• People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
  Forgive them anyway.
  If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
  Be kind anyway.
  If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
  Succeed anyway.
  If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
  Be honest and frank anyway.
  What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
  Build anyway.
  If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
  Be happy anyway.
  The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
  Do good anyway.
  Give the world the best you have,
  and it may never be enough;
  Give the world the best you've got anyway.
  You see, in the final analysis,
  it is between you and God;
  It was never between you and them anyway.
  • "The Paradoxical Commandments" by Kent Keith