110 Mother Teresa Quotes and Sayings

Mother Teresa, known in the Roman Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, has been an inspiration and light for countless people. She devoted her life to serving the poor, neediest and most vulnerable around the world. Mother Teresa is admired by millions because of her charitable work and the lives she touched. In this post we have curated inspiring Mother Teresa quotes that will inspire you to see all the good in the world around you.

Mother Teresa Quotes

1. “The first requirement for prayer is silence. People of prayer are people of silence.” ~ Mother Teresa

2. “There is no key to happiness; the door is always open.” ~ Mother Teresa

3. “We fear the future because we are wasting today.” ~ Mother Teresa

4. “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” ~ Mother Teresa

5. “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” ~ Mother Teresa

6. “When you don’t have anything, then you have everything.” ~ Mother Teresa
7. “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.” ~ Mother Teresa
8. “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” ~ Mother Teresa
9. “If we are humble, nothing will change us, neither praise, nor discouragement.” ~ Mother Teresa
10. “I don’t do great things. I do small things with great love.” ~ Mother Teresa

Quotes by Mother Teresa

11. “If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.” ~ Mother Teresa
12. “Love begins by taking care of the closest ones – the ones at home.” ~ Mother Teresa
13. “Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” ~ Mother Teresa
14. “I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.” ~ Mother Teresa
15. “Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand.” ~ Mother Teresa
16. “Work without love is slavery.” ~ Mother Teresa
17. “I want you to be concerned about your next-door neighbor. Do you know your next-door neighbor?” ~ Mother Teresa
18. “Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.” ~ Mother Teresa
19. “There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter.” ~ Mother Teresa
20. “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” ~ Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Quotes on Love

21. “There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” ~ Mother Teresa
22. “If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.” ~ Mother Teresa
23. “True love is giving and giving until it hurts.” ~ Mother Teresa
24. “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.” ~ Mother Teresa
25. “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love but to use violence to get what they want.” ~ Mother Teresa
26. “I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.” ~ Mother Teresa
27. “Spread the love of God through your life but only use words when necessary.” ~ Mother Teresa
28. “There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those.” ~ Mother Teresa
29. “Sometimes a good feeling from inside is worth much more than a beautician.” ~ Mother Teresa
30. “The problem with the world is that we draw the circle of our family too small.” ~ Mother Teresa

Inspiring Mother Teresa Quotes

31. “Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.” ~ Mother Teresa
32. “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” ~ Mother Teresa
33. “Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.” ~ Mother Teresa
34. “What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway.” ~ Mother Teresa
35. “I go of my free choice, with the blessing of obedience.” ~ Mother Teresa
36. “One of the realities we’re all called to go through is to move from repulsion to compassion and from compassion to wonderment.” ~ Mother Teresa
37. “We cannot give what we have not got.” ~ Mother Teresa
38. “He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your weakness.” ~ Mother Teresa
39. “Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.” ~ Mother Teresa
40. “If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” ~ Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Quotes on God

41. “I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.” ~ Mother Teresa
42. “God speaks in the silence of the heart.” ~ Mother Teresa
43. “Poverty was not created by God. It is we who have caused it, you and I through our egotism.” ~ Mother Teresa
44. “Humility is truth, therefore in all sincerity, we must be able to look up and say, I can do all things in Him who strengthens me. By yourself you can do nothing, have nothing but sin, weakness and misery. All the gifts of nature and grace you have them from God.” ~ Mother Teresa
45. “We must never get into the habit of being preoccupied with the future. There is no reason to do so; God is there.” ~ Mother Teresa
46. “May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.” ~ Mother Teresa
47. “Smiling novices. I can hear the music of your laughter of joy. Learn, my children, to be holy, for true holiness consists of doing God’s work with a smile.” ~ Mother Teresa
48. “I am perfectly happy to be nobody even to God….” ~ Mother Teresa
49. “It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself.” ~ Mother Teresa
50. “We interfere with God’s plans when we push in someone or something else not suitable for us. Be strict with yourself, and then be very strict with what you are receiving from the outside.” ~ Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Quotes

51. “‎Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” ~ Mother Teresa
52. “If we worry too much about ourselves, we won’t have time for others” ~ Mother Teresa
53. “It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.” ~ Mother Teresa
54. “Do not allow yourselves to be disheartened by any failure as long as you have done your best.” ~ Mother Teresa
55. “Together we can do great things.” ~ Mother Teresa
56. “Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.” ~ Mother Teresa
57. “If you are discouraged, it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own powers.” ~ Mother Teresa
58. “I fear just one thing: Money! Greed was what motivated Judas to sell Jesus” ~ Mother Theresa
59. “The openness of our hearts and minds can be measured by how wide we draw the circle of what we call family.” ~ Mother Teresa
60. “If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway.” ~ Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Quotes on Peace

61. “We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion.” ~ Mother Teresa
62. “Whenever you share love with others, you’ll notice the peace that comes to you and to them.” ~ Mother Teresa
63. “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” ~ Mother Teresa
64. “Peace begins with a smile.” ~ Mother Teresa
65. “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” ~ Mother Teresa
66. “Peace and war start within one’s own home. If we really want peace for the world, let us start by loving one another within our families. Sometimes it is hard for us to smile at one another.” ~ Mother Teresa
67. “If now we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten how to see God in one another.” ~ Mother Teresa
68. “Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.” ~ Mother Teresa
69. “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” ~ Mother Teresa
70. “We have to possess before we can give.” ~ Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Quotes on Life

71. “Yes, you must live life beautifully and not allow the spirit of the world that makes gods out of power, riches, and pleasure make you to forget that you have been created for greater things.” ~ Mother Teresa
72. “Life is a game, play it… Life is too precious, do not destroy it.” ~ Mother Teresa
73. “The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others.” ~ Mother Teresa
74. “A life not lived for others is not a life.” ~ Mother Teresa

71. “Life is a challenge; we must take it.” ~ Mother Teresa
72. “Some people come in your life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons.” ~ Mother Teresa
73. “The fruit of faith is love, and the fruit of love is service…spread love everywhere u go..” ~ Mother Teresa
74. “In order to keep the lamp burning you have to keep putting the oil in it.” ~ Mother Teresa
75. “Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it.” ~ Mother Teresa
76. “Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.” ~ Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Quotes

81. “Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway.” ~ Mother Teresa
82. “I do not pray for success; I ask for faithfulness.” ~ Mother Teresa
83. “We must never be afraid to be a sign of contradiction for the world.” ~ Mother Teresa
84. “I know I am touching the living body of Christ in the broken bodies of the hungry and the suffering.” ~ Mother Teresa
85. “The fruit of love is service, which is compassion in action.” ~ Mother Teresa
86. “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” ~ Mother Teresa
87.  “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” ~ Mother Teresa
88. “Jesus said love one another. He didn’t say love the whole world.” ~ Mother Teresa
89. “It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.” ~ Mother Teresa
90. “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” ~ Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Quotes on Joy

91. “Never let anything so fill you with sorrow as to make you forget the joy of Christ risen.” ~ Mother Teresa
92. “Joy is prayer, joy is strength, joy is love, joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.” ~ Mother Teresa
93. “Profound joy of the heart is like a magnet that indicates the path of life.” ~ Mother Teresa
94. “One filled with the joy preaches without preaching.” ~ Mother Teresa
95. “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” ~ Mother Teresa
96. “True love is love that causes us pain, that hurts, and yet brings us joy. That is why we must pray to God and ask Him to give us the courage to love.” ~ Mother Teresa
97. “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.” ~ Mother Teresa
98. “Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.” ~ Mother Teresa
99. “You are greater than you know.” ~ Mother Teresa
100. “The way you help heal the world is you start with your own family.” ~ Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa Quotes

101. “Go out into the world today and love the people you meet. Let your presence light new light in the hearts of people.” ~ Mother Teresa
102. “I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us, and we change things.” ~ Mother Teresa
103. “We must make our homes centers of compassion and forgive endlessly.” ~ Mother Teresa
104. “One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.” ~ Mother Teresa
105. “It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” ~ Mother Teresa
106. “If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway.” ~ Mother Teresa
107. “Live simply so others may simply live.” ~ Mother Teresa
108. “God is everywhere and in everything and without Him we cannot exist.” ~ Mother Teresa
109. “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
110. “How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.” ~ Mother Teresa