Mother Teresa Quotes

It's such a simple thing, really. It's an awareness that the other people in the world are other people, and that you are one of them. That every time you have a chance to help somebody out, to do what's right instead of what you think you're supposed to do, you should do it.

Because a human being is endowed with empathy, he violates the natural order if he does not reach out to those who need care. Responding to this empathy, one is in harmony with the order of things, with dharma; otherwise, one is not.

Whenever I see a homeless guy, I always run back and give him money, because I think, 'Oh my God, what if that was Jesus?'

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and help save the world.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'

One is guilty of all abjection that one does not help to relieve.

How can you regret helping a suffering patient?

There's something about compassion that causes society to say, 'We're going to take this person seriously.' Take Mother Teresa. She was confrontational on abortion, but she wasn't rejected by society.

Though we cannot relieve all the distressed, we should relieve as many as we can.

Your government is still on the same side of the street as the Good Samaritan and not those who pass by on the other side.

People are nicer than economists give us credit for. The economists cannot understand why people would work long and hard to clean up a community after a hurricane. … Most economists don’t have any interest in or understanding of psychology.

If I saw someone in need and I did nothing, I'd be defacing my own humanity.

I have the kind of conscience that it doesn't feel right if I watch other people suffer and I do nothing about it.

With our brains and our smarts and our altruistic capability, we can do a lot of good.

We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don't believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.

[S]uppose the mind of [a] friend of humanity were clouded over with his own grief, extinguishing all sympathetic participation in the fate of others; he still has the resources to be beneficent to those suffering distress, but the distress of others does not touch him because he is sufficiently busy with his own; and now, where no inclination any longer stimulates him to it, he tears himself out of his deadly insensibility and does the action without any inclination, solely from duty.

So long as there are poor, - I am poor, - So long as there are prisons, - I am a prisoner, - So long as there are sick, - I am weak, - So long as there is ignorance, - I must learn the truth, - So long as there is hate, - I must love, - So long as there is hunger, - I am famished. - Such is the identification Our Divine Lord would have us make with all whom He made in love and for love.

We don't have to be good, you know? No one's telling us that we have to do good things, but we do them because we know it makes other people feel good and it makes us feel good.

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. In the face of injustice, one may not look the other way. When someone suffers, and it is not you, that person comes first. One's very suffering gives one priority. . . . To watch over one who grieves is a more urgent duty than to think of God.

We all have the duty to do good.

We are fortunate people. It is our need and responsibility to help our fellow man.

Righteous is the one who was able to demonstrate compassion in face of human suffering.

Of all follies there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place.

If someone comes to you and asks for help, and you can help them, you're supposed to help them. Why wouldn't you? You have been put in the position somehow to be able to help this person.

Frankly, I'm not religious, but I believe in the cause of humanity - doing good work.