Jean Vanier Inspirational Quotes (57)

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

The strong need the weak as much as the weak need the strong

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.

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.

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

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'.

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.

We don’t know what to do with our own pain, so what to do with the pain of others? We don’t know what to do with our own weakness except hide it or pretend it doesn’t exist. So how can we welcome fully the weakness of another if we haven’t welcomed our own weakness?

But let us not put our sights too high. We do not have to be saviours of the world! We are simply human beings, enfolded in weakness and in hope, called together to change our world one heart at a time. (163)