Top 500 Mother Teresa Quotes (2025 Update)
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401. “The more you have, the more you are occupied, the less you give. But the less you have the more free you are. Poverty for us is a 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

402. “We are not here to be successful, we are here to be FAITHFUL.”

— Mother Teresa

403. “My mother and sister must be very happy to be home with God, and I am sure their love and prayers are always with me. When I go home to God, for death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.”

— Mother Teresa

404. “Poverty was not created by God. It is we who have caused it, you and I through our egotism.”

— Mother Teresa

405. “I know i am touching the living body of Christ in the broken bodies of the hungry and the suffering.”

— Mother Teresa

406. “If faith is lacking, it is because there is too much selfishness, too much concern for personal gain. For faith to be true, it has to be generous and loving. Love and faith go together, they complete each other.”

— Mother Teresa

407. “Be humble and you will never be disturbed. It is very difficult in practice because we all want to see the result of our work. Leave it to Jesus.”

— Mother Teresa

408. “The purpose of guilt is to bring us to the Lord, after that it has no purpose.”

— Mother Teresa

409. “God is never late, but rarely early.”

— Mother Teresa

410. “Why can’t there be love that never gets tired?”

— Mother Teresa

411. “Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”

— Mother Teresa

412. “The highest form of worship is to find the least among you and treat them like Jesus.”

— Mother Teresa

413. “Put yourself completely under the influence of Jesus, so that he may think his thoughts in your mind, do his work through your hands, for you will be all-powerful with him to strengthen you.”

— Mother Teresa

414. “It is more difficult to fight poverty in a rich country than in a poor one.”

— Mother Teresa

415. “Every adult was once a child free from prejudice.”

— Mother Teresa

416. “The poorest of the poor are those who feel that they are unloved.”

— Mother Teresa

417. “Love: A fruit always in season.”

— Mother Teresa

418. “When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.”

— Mother Teresa

419. “All of us must be saints in this world. Holiness is a duty for you and me. So let’s be saints and so give glory to the Father.”

— Mother Teresa

420. “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

421. “Holy Angels, our advocates, our brothers, our counselors, our defenders, our enlighteners, our friends, our guides, our helpers, our intercessors – Pray for us.”

— Mother Teresa

422. “We must pray to Jesus to give us that tenderness of the Eucharist.”

— Mother Teresa

423. “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 which hides a life of sacrifice and a continual union with God.”

— Mother Teresa

424. “It takes oil to keep the lamps burning.”

— Mother Teresa

425. “I feel called to help individuals, to love each human being. I never think in terms of crowds in general but in terms of persons. Were I to think about crowds, I would never begin anything.”

— Mother Teresa

426. “Do we know our poor people? Do we know the poor in our house, in our family? Perhaps they are not hungry for a piece of bread. Perhaps our children, husband, wife, are not hungry, or naked, or dispossessed, but are you sure there is no one there who feels unwanted, deprived of affection?”

— Mother Teresa

427. “Do not look for Jesus away from yourselves. He is not out there; He is in you. Keep your lamp burning, and you will recognize him.”

— Mother Teresa

428. “The time we spend in having our daily audience with God is the most precious part of the whole day.”

— Mother Teresa

429. “If you are looking for vocations, as a community have adoration every day. Once the Missionaries of Charity started daily adoration, their vocations doubled.”

— Mother Teresa

430. “Love should be as natural as living and breathing.”

— Mother Teresa

431. “Each time people come into contact with us, they must become different and better people because of having met us. We must radiate God’s love.”

— Mother Teresa

432. “Sometimes it is harder for us to smile at those who live with us, the immediate members of our families, than it is to smile at those who are not so close to us. Let us never forget: love begins at home.”

— Mother Teresa

433. “We complicate prayer as we complicate many things. It is to love Jesus with undivided love-for you, for me, for all of us. And that undivided love is put into action when we do as Jesus said, love as I have loved you.”

— Mother Teresa

434. “You can’t do God’s work without suffering.”

— Mother Teresa

435. “I have the feeling that we are in such a hurry that we do not have time to look at one another and smile.”

— Mother Teresa

436. “It is only by frequent deaths of ourselves and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully.”

— Mother Teresa

437. “It was easier to deal with poverty and death in India that the lack of spirituality in America.”

— Mother Teresa

438. “Prayer is in all things, in all gestures.”

— Mother Teresa

439. “Every human being in that case resembles Christ in his loneliness; and that is the hardest part, that’s real hunger.”

— Mother Teresa

440. “Each of us is merely a small instrument; all of us, after accomplishing our mission, will disappear.”

— Mother Teresa

441. “If we are Christians, we must look like Christ – this is my deep conviction.”

— Mother Teresa

442. “Even when the urgent is good, the good can keep you from your best, keep you from your unique contribution, if you let it.”

— Mother Teresa

443. “If you pray more you will pray better.”

— Mother Teresa

444. “Prayer does not demand that we interrupt our work, but that we continue working as if it were a prayer.”

— Mother Teresa

445. “We don’t need bombs and guns to destroy, to bring peace – 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

446. “Everything starts from prayer. Without asking God for love, we cannot possess love and still less are we able to give it to others. Just as people today are speaking so much about the poor but they do not know or talk to the poor, we too cannot talk so much about prayer and yet not know how to pray.”

— Mother Teresa

447. “Look at the cross and you will know what one soul means to Jesus.”

— Mother Teresa

448. “At the moment of death we will not be judged according to the number of good deeds we have done or by the diplomas we have received in our lifetime. We will be judged according to the love we have put into our work.”

— Mother Teresa

449. “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.”

— Mother Teresa

450. “Without our suffering, our work would simply be social work, very good and helpful, but it would not be the work of Jesus Christ, not part of the Redemption.”

— Mother Teresa