Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Jean Vanier
Age: 90 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: May 7
Naval Officer
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Genève
Needs
Share
Content
Heart
Community
Material
Love
Poor
Loving
People
Often
Hearts
Light
Materials
Littles
Approach
Luxurious
Little
Wealth
Poorest
Need
Joy
Communities

More quotes by Jean Vanier

Image
Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)
Jean Vanier
Image
The belly laugh is the best way to evacuate anguish.
Jean Vanier
Image
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
Image
If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.
Jean Vanier
Image
Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate.
Jean Vanier
Image
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
Image
We work for peace every time we exercise authority with wisdom and authentic love.
Jean Vanier
Image
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
Image
Many people confuse authority and the power of efficiency, as if the first role of people with responsibility is to take decisions, command effectively and so exercise power. But their role first of all is to be a person to whom others can turn for help and advice, to provide security, to affirm, to support, to encourage and to guide.
Jean Vanier
Image
'Going home' is a journey to the heart of who we are, a place where we can be ourselves and welcome the reality of our beauty and our pain. From this acceptance of ourselves, we can accept others as they are and we can see our common humanity.
Jean Vanier
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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?
Jean Vanier
Image
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
Image
To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.
Jean Vanier
Image
If we are to grow in love, the prisons of our egoism must be unlocked. This implies suffering, constant effort and repeated choices.
Jean Vanier
Image
This evolution towards a real responsibility for others is sometimes blocked by fear. It is easier to stay on the level of a pleasant way of life in which we keep our freedom and our distance. But that means that we stop growing and shut ourselves up in our own small concerns and pleasures.
Jean Vanier
Image
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.
Jean Vanier
Image
Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work -- hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss -- loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us.
Jean Vanier
Image
Life is a succession of crises and moments when we have to rediscover who we are and what we really want.
Jean Vanier