Quote

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

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
Dream
Exist
Come
Personal
Even
Grace
Flashes
Years
Struggle
Equilibrium
Make
Peace
Flash
People
Understand
Ideal
Difficult
Ideals
Doesn
Harmony

More quotes by Jean Vanier

Image
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
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
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
Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate.
Jean Vanier
Image
Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness
Jean Vanier
Image
Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us
Jean Vanier
Image
Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed.
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
Love is an act of endless forgiveness.
Jean Vanier
Image
We can be seduced...by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those with power can use clever, psychological tricks and play upon our weaknesses and brokenness in order to attract us to their way of thinking. We can be manipulated into illusion.
Jean Vanier
Image
Community begins in mystery and ends in administration. Leaders move away from people and into paper.
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
There is nothing stronger than a heart which loves and is freely given.
Jean Vanier
Image
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
Image
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
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
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
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
Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.
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