Quote

The belly laugh is the best way to evacuate anguish.

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
Laugh
Laughing
Best
Way
Evacuate
Anguish
Belly

More quotes by Jean Vanier

Image
Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness
Jean Vanier
Image
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.
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
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
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
'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
If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.
Jean Vanier
Image
The strong need the weak as much as the weak need the strong
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
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
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
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
Image
...Individualistic material progress and the desire to gain prestige by coming out on top have taken over from the sense of fellowship, compassion and community. Now people live more or less on their own in a small house, jealously guarding their goods and planning to acquire more, with a notice on the gate that says, 'Beware of the Dog.
Jean Vanier
Image
To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.
Jean Vanier
Image
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
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
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
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
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
Image
Wisdom is something that comes, little by little, through a lot of listening.
Jean Vanier