“If we really want to love we must learn how to forgive."
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Mother Teresa
“The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
―
Mother Teresa
“Do we know our poor people? Do we know the poor in our house, in our family? Perhaps they are not hungry for a piece of bread. Perhaps our children, husband, wife, are not hungry, or naked, or dispossessed, but are you sure there is no one there who feels unwanted, deprived of affection?”
―
Mother Teresa
“We need to realize that 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 someone for someone else”
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Mother Teresa
“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
“Poverty was not created by God. It is we who have caused it, you and I through our egotism.”
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Mother Teresa
“Deliver me, O Jesus, From the desire of being loved, From the desire of being extolled, From the desire of being honored, From the desire of being praised, From the desire of being preferred, From the desire of being consulted, From the desire of being approved, From the desire of being popular, From the fear of being humiliated, From the fear of being despised, From the fear of suffering rebukes, From the fear of being calumniated, From the fear of being forgotten, From the fear of being wronged, From the fear of being ridiculed, From the fear of being suspected.”
―
Mother Teresa
“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.”
―
Mother Teresa
“If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers.”
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Mother Teresa
“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
“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
“Christ says: I know you through and through – I know everything about you. The very hairs of your head I have numbered. Nothing in your life is unimportant to me, I have followed you through the years, and I have always loved you – even in your wanderings.
I know every one of your problems. I know your need and your worries. And yes, I know all your sins. But I tell you again that I love you – not for what you have or haven’t done – I love you for you, for the beauty and dignity my Father gave you by creating you in his own image.”
―
Mother Teresa