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Who really said it

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

Not her exact words — a paraphrase of Mother Teresa Mother Teresa (Saint Teresa of Calcutta) 1910–1997 · Roman Catholic nun · founder of the Missionaries of Charity
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The sentiment is authentically Mother Teresa’s, but this precise wording is a paraphrase. Her own Mother Teresa Center ↗ lists “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love” among “significantly paraphrased versions… not her authentic words.” The documented, sourced form reads: “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love…the smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.”

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed — copy with the correction

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love” Attributed to Mother Teresa — a paraphrase. The documented wording is "Don't look for big things, just do small things with great love," from Come Be My Light (2007).

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the world of Mother Teresa — Roman Catholic nun · founder of the Missionaries of Charity. Theme: "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Popular wording
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
Status
Paraphrase — flagged by the Mother Teresa Center as “not her authentic words.”
Documented wording
“Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love…the smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.”
Sourced in
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (2007), ed. Brian Kolodiejchuk

Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love…The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.

The authentic, documented form as recorded in Come Be My Light (2007) — close in spirit to the popular line, but not the same words.

Mother Teresa Center: quotes falsely attributed to Mother Teresa

How we verified this

  • The official Mother Teresa Center ↗, run by the Missionaries of Charity, lists this exact wording among “significantly paraphrased versions or personal interpretations… not her authentic words.”
  • Wikiquote ↗ places the sourced form — “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love” — in its documented section, citing Come Be My Light (2007).
  • Goodreads ↗ tags the popular line “misattributed-to-mother-teresa” and “paraphrased.”

The popular wording is an anonymous paraphrase with no single identifiable published source, so no copyright status can be asserted for it. The closest documented wording appears in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday, 2007), which is in copyright — but that is a different sentence, not the line in question.

Fact-check

A real thought, a rewritten line

This is one of the most-shared “Mother Teresa” quotes on the internet — and the sentiment truly is hers. But the exact popular wording has been smoothed and rephrased over time, to the point that her own center disowns it as verbatim.

Mother Teresa (paraphrased) paraphrase

Her official Mother Teresa Center ↗ lists “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love” among lines that are “significantly paraphrased versions or personal interpretations of statements Mother Teresa made; they are not her authentic words.”

Anonymous quote sites unsourced

Outlets from Goodreads ↗ (which itself tags it “paraphrased”) to America ↗ present it as a motto without any primary citation, speech, or page reference.

The genuine, documented wording is “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love…the smaller the thing, the greater must be our love,” recorded in Come Be My Light (2007) ↗ — the idea is hers; the tidy internet phrasing is not.

Context

Why this line took on a life of its own

Mother Teresa’s whole spirituality was built on the ‘Little Way’ of St. Thérèse of Lisieux — the conviction that ordinary, hidden acts, done with love, matter more than grand achievements. She said versions of this idea often, which is exactly why a clean, quotable paraphrase spread so easily and now appears on posters, mugs, and graduation cards worldwide.

The trouble is that the neat symmetrical wording people share is a later smoothing of what she actually said. Recognizing that doesn’t diminish the sentiment — it simply keeps the attribution honest, which her own religious order takes care to do.

The idea is hers. The polished sentence is the internet’s.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Kindness Humility Love

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quotes falsely attributed to Mother Teresamotherteresa.org

The official Mother Teresa Center’s own list of paraphrased and misattributed lines, including this exact wording.
Mother Teresa (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Sourced section carries the documented “Don’t look for big things” wording from Come Be My Light (2007).
“Not all of us can do great things…” (Goodreads)goodreads.com

The popular line, tagged “misattributed-to-mother-teresa” and “paraphrased.”
Mother Teresa: Do small things with great loveamericamagazine.org

Jesuit magazine treating “do small things with great love” as her motto — but offering no citation or original source.
Mother Teresa (Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org

Biography of the true author of the underlying idea, canonized in 2016 as Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

The author

About Mother Teresa

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.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Mother Teresa Center & Come Be My Light (2007)

Earliest documented wording: Mother Teresa, quoted in Brian Kolodiejchuk, ed., Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (New York: Doubleday, 2007). The popular variant “Not all of us can do great things…” is listed as a paraphrase by the Mother Teresa Center, motherteresa.org/mtc/false-quotes.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/not-all-of-us-can-do-great-things-but-we-can-do-small

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