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I believe every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. Violence should not be answered just by greater violence but by real understanding. We must ask: 'Where is the violence coming from? What is its meaning?
Jean Vanier
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Jean Vanier
Age: 90 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: May 7
Naval Officer
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
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Messages
Must
Meaning
Real
Understood
Needs
Coming
Every
Violence
Believe
Asks
Greater
Answered
Understanding
Message
More quotes by Jean Vanier
[Happiness] comes when we choose to be who we are, to be ourselves, at this present moment in our lives.
Jean Vanier
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.
Jean Vanier
It is difficult to make people understand that the ideal doesn't exist, that personal equilibrium and the harmony they dream of come only after years and years of struggle, and that even then they come only as flashes of grace and peace.
Jean Vanier
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'.
Jean Vanier
Stop looking for peace. Give yourselves where you are. Stop looking at yourselves, look instead at your brothers and sisters in need. Ask how you can better love your brothers and sisters. Then you will find peace.
Jean Vanier
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.
Jean Vanier
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. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.
Jean Vanier
All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.
Jean Vanier
A community that is growing rich and seeks only to defend its goods and its reputation is dying. It has ceased to grow in love. A community is alive when it is poor and its members feel they have to work together and remain united, if only to ensure that they can all eat tomorrow!
Jean Vanier
Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness
Jean Vanier
In the end, the most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts.
Jean Vanier
To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.
Jean Vanier
Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us
Jean Vanier
There is nothing stronger than a heart which loves and is freely given.
Jean Vanier
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.
Jean Vanier
Avoid the poison in your life that brings you turmoil.
Jean Vanier
The belly laugh is the best way to evacuate anguish.
Jean Vanier
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)
Jean Vanier
We discover that we are at the same time very insignificant and very important, because each of our actions is preparing the humanity of tomorrow it is a tiny contribution to the construction of the huge and glorious final humanity
Jean Vanier
If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.
Jean Vanier
