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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
Genève
Needs
Coming
Every
Violence
Believe
Asks
Greater
Answered
Understanding
Message
Also
Messages
Must
Meaning
Real
Understood

More quotes by Jean Vanier

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We work for peace every time we exercise authority with wisdom and authentic love.
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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'.
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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.
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I remember that throughout history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always...whenever you are in doubt that that is God's way - the way the world is meant to be. Think of that and then try to do His way.
Jean Vanier
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To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain.
Jean Vanier
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So we need places, laboratories, the creation of places which could be each one of our homes, where we invite people who are different, and we listen to each other, people of different class groups.
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All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.
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If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.
Jean Vanier
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Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.
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Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate.
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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.
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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
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Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness
Jean Vanier
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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
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A tension or difficulty can signal the approach of a new grace of God. But it has to be looked at wisely and humanly.
Jean Vanier
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The strong need the weak as much as the weak need the strong
Jean Vanier
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Avoid the poison in your life that brings you turmoil.
Jean Vanier
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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.
Jean Vanier
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Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us
Jean Vanier
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Life is a succession of crises and moments when we have to rediscover who we are and what we really want.
Jean Vanier