Top 500 Mother Teresa Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “Joy is the characteristic by which God uses us to re-make the distressing into the desired, the discarded into the creative. Joy is prayer-Joy is strength-Joy is love-Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”

— Mother Teresa

302. “The less we have, the more we give. Seems absurd, but it’s the logic of love.”

— Mother Teresa

303. “God is everywhere and in everything and without Him we cannot exist.”

— Mother Teresa

304. “Never Let Anyone Come to You Without Coming Away Better and Happier.”

— Mother Teresa

305. “A Christian is the dwelling place of the living God. He created me, he chose me, He came to dwell in me, because he wanted me. Now that you have known how much God is in love with you it is but natural that you spend the rest of your life radiating that love.”

— Mother Teresa

306. “To God there is nothing small. The moment we have given it to God, it becomes infinite.”

— Mother Teresa

307. “Let us remain as empty as possible so that God can fill us up.”

— Mother Teresa

308. “The more we can give in our silent prayer, the more we can give in our active life.”

— Mother Teresa

309. “Let’s not pray long, drawn-out prayers, but let’s pray short ones full of love. Let us pray on behalf of those who do not pray. Let us remember, if we want to be able to love, we must be able to pray!”

— Mother Teresa

310. “Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet come; we must live each day as if it were our last so that when God calls us we already, and prepared, to die with a clean heart.”

— Mother Teresa

311. “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

312. “Sometimes people can hunger for more than bread. It is possible that our children, our husband, our wife, do not hunger for bread, do not need clothes, do not lack a house. But are we equally sure that none of them feels alone, abandoned, neglected, needing some affection? That, too, is poverty.”

— Mother Teresa

313. “Religion has nothing to do with compassion; it is our love for God that is the main thing because we have all been created for the sole purpose to love and be loved.”

— Mother Teresa

314. “It is impossible to love God without loving our neighbor.”

— Mother Teresa

315. “Let us be very sincere in our dealings with each other and have the courage to accept each other as we are.”

— Mother Teresa

316. “Failure is nothing but the kiss of Jesus.”

— Mother Teresa

317. “Perfect prayer does not consist in many words, but in the fervor of the desire which raises the heart to Jesus.”

— Mother Teresa

318. “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.”

— Mother Teresa

319. “If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride, because it shows you trust in your own powers.”

— Mother Teresa

320. “Holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting, with a smile, what Jesus sends us. It consists in accepting and following the will of God.”

— Mother Teresa

321. “The point is to do something, however small, and show you care through your actions by giving your time.”

— Mother Teresa

322. “If our bones were not sending whispers of doubt to our hearts, there would be no need for prayer at all.”

— Mother Teresa

323. “Silence gives us a new way of looking at something.”

— Mother Teresa

324. “God made the world for the delight of human beings.”

— Mother Teresa

325. “People have forgotten what the human touch is, what it is to smile, for somebody to smile at them, somebody to recognize them, somebody to wish them well. The terrible thing is to be unwanted.”

— Mother Teresa

326. “A Mother is the heart of the home.”

— Mother Teresa

327. “The way to plan the family is natural family planning not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self, and so it destroys the gift of life in him or her.”

— Mother Teresa

328. “The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give.”

— Mother Teresa

329. “Everything that is not given is lost.”

— Mother Teresa

330. “A direct killing of the innocent child, ‘Murder’ by the mother herself.”

— Mother Teresa

331. “Love has a hem to her garment that reaches to the very dust. It sweeps the stains from the streets and lanes, and because it can, it must.”

— Mother Teresa

332. “I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?”

— Mother Teresa

333. “There is a famine in America. Not a famine of food, but of love, of truth, of life.”

— Mother Teresa

334. “You may be exhausted with work, you may even kill yourself, but unless your work is interwoven with love, it is useless. To work without love is slavery.”

— Mother Teresa

335. “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.”

— Mother Teresa

336. “I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money.”

— Mother Teresa

337. “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”

— Mother Teresa

338. “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.”

— Mother Teresa

339. “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

340. “There is so much love in us all, but often we are too shy to express our love, and keep it bottled up inside us. We must learn to love, to love until it hurts, and we will know how to accept love.”

— Mother Teresa

341. “If you have not the experience, ask. There is no shame in asking, but do not pretend you know when you don’t.”

— Mother Teresa

342. “We cannot condemn or judge or pass words that will hurt people. We don’t know in what way God is appearing to that soul and what God is drawing that soul to; therefore, who are we to condemn anybody?”

— Mother Teresa

343. “If you really love one another, you will not be able to avoid making sacrifices.”

— Mother Teresa

344. “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

345. “Maybe if I didn’t pick up that one person, I wouldn’t have picked up forty-two thousand...”

— Mother Teresa

346. “I don’t claim anything of the work. It is his work. I am like a little pencil in his hand. That is all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it.”

— Mother Teresa

347. “Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.”

— Mother Teresa

348. “Let us love one another as God loves each one of us. And where does this love begin? In our own home. How does it begin? By praying together.”

— Mother Teresa

349. “Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set. Everyone can reach this love through meditation, spirit of prayer, and sacrifice, by an intense inner life.”

— Mother Teresa

350. “The other day I dreamed that I was at the gates of heaven. And St. Peter said, ‘Go back to Earth, there are no slums up here.’”

— Mother Teresa