Mother Teresa

1910–1997 · Roman Catholic nun · founder of the Missionaries of Charity

Born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu in Skopje in 1910, Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta in 1950 and spent her life serving the poorest of the poor. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was canonized as Saint Teresa of Calcutta in 2016. Her spirituality of small, hidden acts of love — echoing St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s “Little Way” — is the genuine root of this quotation, even where the popular phrasing is not her exact words.

Traced to source

3 quotes we’ve traced to Mother Teresa

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier”

Attributed

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them”

Disputed

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love”

Disputed

Not actually Mother Teresa

Often misattributed to Mother Teresa

Famous lines widely pinned on Mother Teresa that we’ve traced to someone else.

“In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway”

actually Kent M. Keith (poem) — the coda itself is anonymous

“People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; forgive them anyway”

actually Kent M. Keith

Did they really say it?

Thought Mother Teresa said something else?

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