Jean Vanier quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Jean Vanier on Wise Famous Quotes.

When we judge, we are pushing people away; we are creating a wall, a barrier. When we forgive we are destroying barriers, we come closer to others.

Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness

Every human being is a mixture of light and darkness, trust and fear, love and hate.

Our humanity is so beautiful, but it needs to be transformed

All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.

Every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. (23-24)

We cannot grow spiritually if we ignore our humanness, just as we cannot become fully human if we ignore our spirituality.

To forgive is a gift of God that permits us to let go of our past hurts.

When we love and respect people, revealing to them their value, they can begin to come out from behind the walls that protect them.

I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.

Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief, in their own gifts.

When children are loved, they live off trust; their bides and hearts open up to those who respect and love them, who understand and listen to them.

[Happiness] comes when we choose to be who we are, to be ourselves, at this present moment in our lives.

Every human activity can be put at the service of the divine and of love. We should all exercise our gift to build community.

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.

An ethics of desire is good news for those of us who have become allergic to an ethics of law.

Life is a succession of crises and moments when we have to rediscover who we are and what we really want.

The friend of time doesn't spend all day saying: 'I haven't got time.' He doesn't fight with time. He accepts it and cherishes it.

We will only stay in community if we have gone through the passage from choosing community to knowing that we have been chosen for community.

People are longing to rediscover true community. We have had enough of loneliness, independence and competition.

The belly laugh is the best way to evacuate anguish.

To love someone is to reveal to them their capacities for life, the light that is shining in them.

To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren't afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.

Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us

Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.

People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.

Power always has a direction. It is always downward, towards the weak but power is often confused with what is right

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

He who is or has been deeply hurt has a RIGHT to be sure he is LOVED.

To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance.

Growth will come as we come closer to people who are different from us and as we learn to welcome and listen even to those who trigger off our pain.

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.

The word love has been so abused by publicity and advertisements that we no longer know really what it means.

Community begins in mystery and ends in administration. Leaders move away from people and into paper.

A tension or difficulty can signal the approach of a new grace of God. But it has to be looked at wisely and humanly.

If we are to grow in love, the prisons of our egoism must be unlocked. This implies suffering, constant effort and repeated choices.

There is nothing stronger than a heart which loves and is freely given.

Wisdom is something that comes, little by little, through a lot of listening.

We work for peace every time we exercise authority with wisdom and authentic love.

Avoid the poison in your life that brings you turmoil.

Weakness, recognized, accepted, and offered, is at the heart of belonging, so it is at the heart of communion with another.

Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness.

We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love.

The strong need the weak as much as the weak need the strong