200+ Mother Teresa Quotes – Most Most Inspiring Quotes

Mother Teresa, loved by many, dedicated herself to helping poor and marginalized people. People all over the globe are motivated by the countless inspirational quotes that She has left behind.

Within this gathering of quotes from Mother Teresa, you will find some of her most influential and inspiring words of enlightenment. These quotes are simple and compassionate. They have been necessary to people from different backgrounds and periods, providing comfort and guidance.

People turn to Mother Teresa’s quotes for various reasons—seeking inspiration to make a positive impact, solace in times of hardship, or reflecting on the enduring power of love and kindness.

Join us as we explore the wise and inspirational quotes of Mother Teresa.

Mother Teresa Quotes on Kindness, Love & Charity

If you judge people, you have no time to love them. – Mother Teresa

 

There is no key to happiness; the door is always open. – Mother Teresa

 

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples. -Mother Teresa

 

Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness. – Mother Teresa

 

We do not need guns and bombs to bring peace, we need love and compassion. – Mother Teresa

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier. – Mother Teresa

 

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. – Mother Teresa

 

I know God won’t give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much. – Mother Teresa

 

Now I really rejoice when something does not go as I wish—because I see that He wants our trust—that is why in the loss let us praise God as if we have got everything. — Mother Teresa

 

Peace begins with a smile. — Mother Teresa

 

I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now i know that prayer changes us, and we change things. — Mother Teresa

 

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 true enemies: Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank people will try to cheat you: Be honest anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight: Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous of you: Be happy anyway. The good you do today will often be forgotten by tomorrow: Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough: Give your best anyway. – Mother Teresa

 

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. – Mother Teresa

 

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. – Mother Teresa

 

Live simply, so that others may simply live. – 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

 

Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. – Mother Teresa

There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those. – Mother Teresa

 

If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive. – Mother Teresa

 

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. – Mother Teresa

 

If we have no peace if you want to bring happiness to the whole world, go home and love your family. – Mother Teresa

 

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. – Mother Teresa

 

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat. -Mother Teresa

 

A life not lived for others is not a life. -Mother Teresa

 

We can do not great things. Only small things with great love. — Mother Teresa

 

Live simply so others may simply live. — Mother Teresa

 

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?― Mother Teresa

 

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. – Mother Teresa

 

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do. – Mother Teresa

 

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

 

Intense love does not measure, It just gives. – Mother Teresa

 

Life is love, enjoy it. Life is a mystery, know it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. – Mother Teresa

I’m a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world. – Mother Teresa

 

Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of your greeting…Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well. – Mother Teresa

 

I feel 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 can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love… And we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts…- Mother Teresa

 

It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving. – Mother Teresa

 

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. – 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

 

I used to pray for answers, but now I’m praying for strength. I used to believe that prayer changes things, but now I know that prayer changes us and we change things. — Mother Teresa

 

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love. — Mother Teresa

 

God has not called me to be successful. He called me to be faithful. — Mother Teresa

 

Your true character Is most accurately measured by how you treat those who can do ‘Nothing’ for you -Mother Teresa

 

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. -Mother Teresa

 

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin. -Mother Teresa

 

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. – Mother Teresa

 

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one. — Mother Teresa

 

Some people come into your life as lessons. Some come in your life as lessons. – Mother Teresa

 

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 – Mother Teresa

 

There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives-the pain the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor you may have right in your own family. Find them. Love them. – Mother Teresa

 

We fear the future because we are wasting the today – Mother Teresa

 

Whatever you do for your family, your children, your husband, your wife, you do for God. All we do, our prayers, our work, our suffering, is for Jesus. – Mother Teresa

Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. – Mother Teresa

 

Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. – Mother Teresa

 

If you want to change the world, go home and love your family. – Mother Teresa

 

If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.—Mother Teresa

 

I want you to be concerned about your next-door neighbor. Do you know your next-door neighbor? .—Mother Teresa

 

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. ― Mother Teresa

 

God doesn’t require us to succeed; he only requires that you try. – Mother Teresa

 

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. – Mother Teresa

 

Love cannot remain by itself – it has no meaning. Love has to be put into action, and that action is service. – Mother Teresa

Read More: 200+ Nelson Mandela Quotes

The world is full of good people. If you can’t find one be one. – Mother Teresa

 

Jesus said to love one another. He didn’t say love the whole world. – Mother Teresa

 

Do not allow yourselves to be disheartened by any failure as long as you have done your best. -Mother Teresa

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. The money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.- Mother Teresa

 

The Lord likes small things best, especially those done with love.- Mother Teresa

 

Love is a fruit in season at all times and within reach of every hand. – Mother Teresa

 

Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own. – Mother Teresa

 

Good works are links that form a chain of love. – Mother Teresa

 

Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love. The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.— Mother Teresa

 

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action .— Mother Teresa

 

I am like a little pencil in God’s hand. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. .— Mother Teresa

 

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is too precious, do not destroy it. Life is life, fight for it. -Mother Teresa

 

Please choose the way of peace…In the short term, there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain, and loss of life your weapons will cause. -Mother Teresa

 

If we accept that a mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill each other? Any country that accepts abortions is not teaching people to love but to use any violence to get what they want. – Mother Teresa

 

Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do it to me. — Mother Teresa

 

This is the meaning of true love, to give until it hurts. – Mother Teresa

 

One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody. – Mother Teresa

 

Never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly. – Mother Teresa

When you don’t have anything, then you have everything– Mother Teresa

 

It is easy to love people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. Bring love into your home, for this is where our love for each other must start. – Mother Teresa

 

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. – Mother Teresa

 

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. – Mother Teresa

 

I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish. – Mother Teresa

 

Help one person at a time and always start with the person nearest you.— Mother Teresa

 

The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it.— Mother Teresa

 

At the end of life, we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. – Mother Teresa

 

We will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in. ― Mother Teresa

 

I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things. – Mother Teresa

 

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. – Mother Teresa

 

We fear the future because we wasted today- Mother Teresa

 

It is a kingly act to assist the fallen. – Mother Teresa

 

Joy must be one of the pivots of our life. It is the token of a generous personality. Sometimes it is also a mantle that clothes a life of sacrifice and self-giving. A person who has this gift often reaches high summits. He or she is like the sun in a community. – Mother Teresa

When you have nothing left but God, you have more than enough to start over again. — Mother Teresa

 

All works of love are works of peace. — Mother Teresa

 

In this life, we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love. – Mother Teresa

 

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. — Mother Teresa

 

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus. — Mother Teresa

 

Why must we give ourselves fully to God? Because God has given Himself to us. If God who owes nothing to us is ready to impart to us no less than Himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves? To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God Himself. I for God and God for me. I live for God and give up my own self, and in this way induce God to live for me. Therefore to possess God we must allow Him to possess our soul. — Mother Teresa

 

Work without love is slavery. — Mother Teresa

 

God allows the failure but he does not want the discouragement. — Mother Teresa

 

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. – Mother Teresa

 

What we do is less than a drop in the ocean. But if it were missing, the ocean would lack something. – Mother Teresa

 

The secret to world peace is to go home and love your babies.– Mother Teresa

 

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. – Mother Teresa

 

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise. – Mother Teresa

 

We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something. – Mother Teresa

 

The child is the beauty of God present in the world, that greatest gift to a family. – 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

 

Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world. – Mother Teresa

Smile at each other. Smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other – it doesn’t matter who it is – and that will help to grow up in greater love for each other. – Mother Teresa

 

Joy is the token of a generous personality. Sometimes it is also a mantle that clothes a life of sacrifice and self-giving. A person who has this gift often reaches high summits. He or she is like the sun in a community.—Mother Teresa

 

It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish. ― Mother Theresa

 

I think I’m more difficult than critical. – Mother Teresa

 

There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in – that we do it to God, to Christ, and that’s why we try to do it as beautifully as possible. – Mother Teresa

 

Be happy at the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more. – Mother Teresa

 

Nothing makes you happier than when you really reach out in mercy to someone who is badly hurt. – Mother Teresa

 

If we worry too much about ourselves, we won’t have time for others – Mother Teresa

 

God gives us things to share; God doesn’t give us things to hold – Mother Teresa

 

I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there. – Mother Teresa

 

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters. – Mother Teresa

 

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. – Mother Teresa

 

Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience. – Mother Teresa

 

Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self. — Mother Teresa

 

We learn humility through accepting humiliations cheerfully. – Mother Teresa

 

Give of your hands to serve and your hearts to love. – Mother Teresa

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

 

External beauty disappears as you age but internal beauty is remembered even when you are long gone from this earth. – Mother Teresa

 

Pain and suffering have come into your life, but remember the pain, sorrow, suffering are but the kiss of Jesus – a sign that you have come so close to Him that He can kiss you. – Mother Teresa

 

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted. – Mother Teresa

 

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. – Mother Teresa

 

The problem with our world is that we draw the circle of family too small. – Mother Teresa

 

It is impossible to walk rapidly and be unhappy. – Mother Teresa

 

Do not worry about why problems exist in the world – just respond to people’s needs. – Mother Teresa

 

In the silence of the heart, God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence. ― Mother Teresa

 

The success of love is in the loving – it is not in the result of loving. Of course, it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does NOT determine the value of what we have done. – Mother Teresa

 

I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness. – Mother Teresa

 

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. – Mother Teresa

 

How can there be too many children – That is like saying there are too many flowers. – Mother Teresa

 

Life is a challenge, we must take it. – Mother Teresa

 

So many signatures for such a small heart. – Mother Teresa

 

These are the few ways we can practice humility. To speak as little as possible of one’s self. To mind one’s own business. Not to want to manage other people’s affairs. To avoid curiosity. To accept contradictions and correction cheerfully. To pass over the mistakes of others. To accept insults and injuries. To accept being slighted, forgotten and disliked. To be kind and gentle even under provocation. Never to stand on one’s dignity. To choose always the hardest. – Mother Teresa

 

I do not agree with the big way of doing things. To us, what matters is an individual. – Mother Teresa

 

Love demands sacrifice. But if we love until it hurts, God will give us His peace and joy. Suffering in itself is nothing, but suffering shared with Christ’s Passion is a wonderful gift. — Mother Teresa

 

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream, precedes the goal. – Mother Teresa

 

Faith in action is love- and love in action is service. – Mother Teresa

 

An attitude of gratitude creates blessings. Help yourself by helping others. You have the most powerful weapons on earth – love and prayer. – Mother Teresa

 

I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness. – Mother Teresa

 

Without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less. Ironically, rush and more usually mean less. – Mother Teresa

 

The profound joy of the heart is like a magnet that indicates the path of life.― Mother Teresa

 

I have never been in a war before, but I have seen famine and death. I was asking (myself) what do they feel when they do this? I don’t understand it. They are all children of God. Why do they do it? I don’t understand. – Mother Teresa

 

People are generally irrational, unreasonable and selfish. They deserve to be loved, anyway. – Mother Teresa

 

Just get together, love one another, bring that peace, that joy, that strength of presence of each other in the home. And we will be able to overcome all the evil that is in the world. – Mother Teresa

 

Listen in silence because if your heart is full of other things you cannot head the voice of God.- Mother Teresa

 

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

 

Do ordinary things with extraordinary love. – Mother Teresa

 

You can love all men perfectly if you love the one God in them all. – Mother Teresa

 

Everything that is not given is lost. – Mother Teresa

 

Poverty is not made by God, it is created by you and me when we don’t share what we have. – Mother Teresa

 

Whenever you share the love with others, you’ll notice the peace that comes to you and to them. If there are people who feel that God wants them to change the structures of society, that is something between them and their God. We must serve him in whatever way we are called. I am called to help the individual; to love each poor person. Not to deal with institutions. I am in no position to judge. – Mother Teresa

 

May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in. – Mother Teresa

 

Life is a game, play it… Life is too precious, do not destroy it. – Mother Teresa

 

Each of us is merely a small instrument; all of us, after accomplishing our mission, will disappear. ― Mother Teresa

 

Keep the corners of your mouth turned up. Speak in a low, persuasive tone. Listen; be teachable. Laugh at good stories and learn to tell them…For as long as you are green, you can grow.― Mother Teresa

 

There is a light in this world, a healing spirit more powerful than any darkness we may encounter. .― Mother Teresa

 

I will never attend an anti-war rally; if you have a peace rally, invite me. – Mother Teresa

 

There’s nothing more calming in difficult moments than knowing there’s someone fighting with you.- Mother Teresa

 

Sometimes a good feeling from inside is worth much more than a beautician. – Mother Teresa

 

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. – Mother Teresa

 

If we cannot love the person whom we see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? – Mother Teresa

 

Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing. – Mother Teresa

 

The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the freer you are. Poverty for us is freedom. It is not mortification, a penance. It is joyful freedom. There is no television here, no this, no that. But we are perfectly happy. – Mother Teresa

 

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.― Mother Teresa

 

The less we have, the more we give. It seems absurd, but it’s the logic of love. ― Mother Teresa

 

I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one. ― Mother Teresa

 

Cheerfulness is a sign of a generous and mortified person who forgetting all things, even herself, tries to please her God in all she does for souls. Cheerfulness is often a cloak that hides a life of sacrifice and a continual union with God. – Mother Teresa

 

The openness of our hearts and minds can be measured by how wide we draw the circle of what we call family. – Mother Teresa

 

In loving one another through our works we bring an increase of grace and a growth in divine love. – Mother Teresa

 

Doctors can heal the body, but it is music that uplifts the spirit. – Mother Teresa

 

I go of my free choice, with the blessing of obedience. ― Mother Theresa

 

God loves me. I’m not here just to fill a place, just to be a number. He has chosen me for a purpose. I know it.

 

A beautiful death is for people who lived like animals to die like angels – loved and wanted. – Mother Teresa

 

Poverty was not created by God. It is we who have caused it, you and I through our egotism. – Mother Teresa

 

The poor are great! The poor are wonderful! The poor are very generous! They give us much more than what we give them. – Mother Teresa

 

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. – Mother Teresa

 

People are unrealistic, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. – Mother Teresa

 

If each of us would only sweep our own doorstep, the whole world would be clean. – Mother Teresa

 

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

 

He who is faultless does not care for the opinion of others. – Mother Teresa

 

Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three-quarters of its victims are women: Half the babies and all the mothers. – Mother Teresa
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

 

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. – Mother Teresa

 

Am I ever angry or frustrated? I only feel angry sometimes when I see waste, when things that we waste are what people need, things that would save them from dying. Frustrated? No, never.― Mother Teresa

Thanks for reading. Mother Teresa’s Quotes shine as beacons of hope and compassion in a world often filled with challenges. Mother Teresa’s Quotes inspire and guide us, reminding us of the enduring power of love.

Which quote is your favorite? tell us in the comment section.