I must be willing to give whatever it takes to do good to others. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise, there is no true love in me, and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies: Succeed anyway.
People ask me what advice I have for a married couple struggling in their relationship. I always answer: pray and forgive. And to young people from violent homes, I say: pray and forgive. And again, even to the single mother with no family support: pray and forgive.
I have a diplomatic passport for India, diplomatic passport for Albania. I have Vatican passport and to America, I can go any time.
I believe in person to person; every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is only one person in the world for me at that moment.
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?
The trees, the flowers, the plants grow in silence. The stars, the sun, the moon move in silence. Silence gives us a new perspective.
The true way and the sure way to friendship is through humility-being open to each other, accepting each other just as we are, knowing each other.
Whatever our religion, we know that if we really want to love, we must first learn to forgive before anything else.
I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve becuase I love Jesus.
I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness.
I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.
Listen in silence because if your heart is full of other things you cannot hear the voice of God.
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.
Longer Version:
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.
The Simple Path
Silence is Prayer
Prayer is Faith
Faith is Love
Love is Service
The Fruit of Service is Peace.
We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing.
Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering and the lonely right there where you are.
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.
The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.
Every human being in that case resembles Christ in his loneliness; and that is the hardest part, that's real hunger.
He came amongst his own and his own received him not, and it hurt him then and it has kept on hurting him. The same hunger, the same loneliness, the same having no one to be accepted by and to be loved and wanted by.
When Christ said: I was hungry and you fed me, he didn't mean only the hunger for bread and for food; he also meant the hunger to be loved. Jesus himself experienced this loneliness.
Longer Version:
When Christ said: I was hungry and you fed me, he didn't mean only the hunger for bread and for food; he also meant the hunger to be loved. Jesus himself experienced this loneliness. He came amongst his own and his own received him not, and it hurt him then and it has kept on hurting him. The same hunger, the same loneliness, the same having no one to be accepted by and to be loved and wanted by. Every human being in that case resembles Christ in his loneliness; and that is the hardest part, that's real hunger.
A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, and must empty ourselves. Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in his love than in your weakness.
It is not the magnitude of our actions, but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.
Love is not patronizing and charity isn't about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same -- with charity you give love, so don't just give money but reach out your hand instead.
Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.
Go out into the world today and love the people you meet. Let your presence light new light in the hearts of people.
I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.
And so let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love, and once we begin to love each other naturally we want to do something.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Longer Version:
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway. For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
It's not about how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do that counts.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are.
Every person whether he is Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist, he is my brother, my sister.
Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.
Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.
Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers.
If you want to bring happiness to the whole world, go home and love your family.
The child is the beauty of God present in the world, that greatest gift to a family.
If you ask children in the west where's God, they'd point to the sky. If you ask children in India, they point at themselves.
Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway.
Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.
I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' rather he will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?
There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use.
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.
Longer Version:
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling or being unwanted, uncared for, deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one's neighbor who lives at the roadside, the victim of exploitation, corruption, poverty, and disease.
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.
Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.
Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.
Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Longer Version:
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.
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.
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.
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
Peace begins with a smile.
Longer Version:
Peace begins with a smile. I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish.
Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.