Jean Vanier Quotes

To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.

Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.

Each person is sacred, no matter what his or her culture, religion, handicap, or fragility. Each person is created in God’s image; each one has a heart, a capacity to love and to be loved.

Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we want them to be.

Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness

One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals.

I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.

Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us

Prayer is like a secret garden made up of silence and rest and inwardness. But there are a thousand and one doors into this garden and we all have to find our own.

Love is to recognize that the other person is a person, is precious, is important and has value.

A community which refuses to welcome - whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors - is dying spiritually.

Life is a succession of crises and moments when we have to rediscover who we are and what we really want.

Love is an act of endless forgiveness.

When we love and respect people, revealing to them their value, they can begin to come out from behind the walls that protect them.

A community is only a community when the majority of its members are making the transition from 'the community for myself' to 'myself for the community'.

It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.

[Happiness] comes when we choose to be who we are, to be ourselves, at this present moment in our lives.

We cannot grow spiritually if we ignore our humanness, just as we cannot become fully human if we ignore our spirituality.

A Christian community should do as Jesus did: propose and not impose. Its attraction must lie in the radiance cast by the love of brothers.

All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.

When we begin to believe that there is greater joy in working with and for others, rather than just for ourselves, then our society will truly become a place of celebration.

Wisdom is something that comes, little by little, through a lot of listening.

Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: "He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community." A community is not an abstract ideal.

Our danger is to think that happiness will come from outside of us, from the things we possess or the power of our group, and not from within us, from the inner sanctuary of our being.

Avoid the poison in your life that brings you turmoil.

So many in our world today are suffering from isolation, war and oppression. So much money is spent on the construction of armaments. Many, many young people are in despair because of the danger.

People are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition.

If we are to grow in love, the prisons of our egoism must be unlocked. This implies suffering, constant effort and repeated choices.

Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts.

People may come to our communities because they want to serve the poor; they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are poor.

Every human activity can be put at the service of the divine and of love. We should all exercise our gift to build community.

There is nothing stronger than a heart which loves and is freely given.

Community begins in mystery and ends in administration. Leaders move away from people and into paper.

When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don't need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest.

Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)

I have discovered the value of psychology and psychiatry, that their teachings can undo knots in us and permit life to flow again and aid us in becoming more truly human.

People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.

In any case, community is not about perfect people. It is about people who are bonded to each other, each of whom is a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, love and hate.

The friend of time doesn't spend all day saying: 'I haven't got time.' He doesn't fight with time. He accepts it and cherishes it.

Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live.

When we judge, we are pushing people away; we are creating a wall, a barrier. When we forgive we are destroying barriers, we come closer to others.

Power always has a direction. It is always downward, towards the weak but power is often confused with what is right

Put on light-coloured clothes and some perfume, take care of your body and do everything you can to fight against the forces of darkness. It is not an easy struggle, but it is worthwhile.

Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate.

At the heart of the celebration, there are the poor. If [they] are excluded, it is not longer a celebration. [...] A celebration must always be a festival of the poor.

We work for peace every time we exercise authority with wisdom and authentic love.

When children are loved, they live off trust; their bides and hearts open up to those who respect and love them, who understand and listen to them.

He who is or has been deeply hurt has a RIGHT to be sure he is LOVED.

Look at your own poverty welcome it cherish it don't be afraid share your death because thus you will share your love and your life

To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren't afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.