Jean Vanier Quotes
Top 44 wise famous quotes and sayings 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.
All of us have a secret desire to be seen as saints, heroes, martyrs. We are afraid to be children, to be ourselves.
We cannot grow spiritually if we ignore our humanness, just as we cannot become fully human if we ignore our spirituality.
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.
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.
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.
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
welcome it
cherish it
don't be afraid
share your death
because thus you will share your love and your life
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.
Weakness, recognized, accepted, and offered, is at the heart of belonging, so it is at the heart of communion with another.