Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
Mother Teresa
- Life
- 1910-1997
- Occupations
- religious sister, missionary, nun
Facts: Wikidata (CC0), as of 2026-07-09
Many 'Mother Teresa quotes' come not from her but from a poem called 'Anyway' (a version of Kent Keith's 'Paradoxical Commandments') that hung on the wall of her Calcutta children's home -- proximity became authorship. Her verified words are mostly from letters and addresses, including the posthumously published private letters that revealed decades of spiritual doubt.
I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.
Mother Teresa
I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper’s wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?
Mother Teresa
It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.
Mother Teresa
It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.
Mother Teresa
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
Mother Teresa
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.
Mother Teresa
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.
Mother Teresa
Men do no great things, only small things with great love.
Mother Teresa
Peace begins with a smile.
Mother Teresa
The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved they are Jesus in disguise.
Mother Teresa
The greatest science in the world; in heaven and on earth; is love.
Mother Teresa
There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.
Mother Teresa
When I see waste here, I feel angry on the inside. I don't approve of myself getting angry. But it's something you can't help after seeing Ethiopia.
Mother Teresa
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.
Mother Teresa