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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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Jean Vanier
Age: 90 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 10
Died: 2019
Died: May 7
Naval Officer
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Genève
Share
Poor
Love
People
Identify

More quotes by Jean Vanier

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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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Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.
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Avoid the poison in your life that brings you turmoil.
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Community is not an ideal it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we want them to be.
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Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)
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Wisdom is something that comes, little by little, through a lot of listening.
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Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate.
Jean Vanier
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It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.
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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.
Jean Vanier
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To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.
Jean Vanier
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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
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People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.
Jean Vanier
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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.
Jean Vanier
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Love is an act of endless forgiveness.
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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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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We have to remind ourselves constantly that we are not saviours. We are simply a tiny sign, among thousands of others, that love is possible, that the world is not condemned to a struggle between oppressors and oppressed, that class and racial warfare is not inevitable.
Jean Vanier
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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
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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
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Each person with his or her history of being accepted or rejected, with his or her past history of inner pain and difficulties in relationships, is different. But in each one there is a yearning for communion and belonging, but at the same time a fear of it. Love is what we most want, yet it is what we fear the most.
Jean Vanier