QuoteProject
I never looked at the masses as my responsibility. I can only love one person at a time. So I began. I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand.
Mother Teresa
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the importance of focusing on individual relationships rather than trying to help everyone at once.

Mother Teresa highlights that true compassion and love start with individual acts rather than sweeping gestures towards large groups. By dedicating her time and affection to one person, she created a ripple effect of kindness and assistance, ultimately helping many more people over time. This signifies that small, concentrated efforts can lead to significant impact.

Themes

LoveCompassionIndividualServiceImpact

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about community service, one might quote this to inspire others to focus on individual acts of kindness.

More from Mother Teresa

The way to plan the family is natural family planning not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self, and so it destroys the gift of life in him or her
Mother TeresaRead
I believe in person to person; every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is only one person in the world for me at that moment.
Mother TeresaRead
Purity is the fruit of prayer.
Mother TeresaRead
If your Eyes are Positive, You will Love the World. _x000D_ But if Your Tongue is Positive, The World will Love you.
Mother TeresaRead
The poor are great! The poor are wonderful! The poor are very generous! They give us much more than what we give them.
Mother TeresaRead
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.
Mother TeresaRead

Similar quotes

Let us pause before the Child of Bethlehem. Let us allow our hearts to be touched, let us allow ourselves to be warmed by the tenderness of God; we need his caress. God is full of love: to him be praise and glory forever! God is peace: let us ask him to help us to be peacemakers each day, in our life, in our families, in our cities and nations, in the whole world. Let us allow ourselves to be moved by God's goodness.
Pope FrancisRead
After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love--I have found you.
Charlotte BronteRead
Love is a horse with a broken leg trying to stand while 45,000 people watch.
Charles BukowskiRead
Love Came.... _x000D_ and became like blood in my body. _x000D_ It rushed through my veins and _x000D_ encircled my Heart. _x000D_ _x000D_ Everywhere I looked, _x000D_ I saw One Thing.... _x000D_ Love's Name written _x000D_ on my limbs, _x000D_ on my left palm, _x000D_ on my forehead, _x000D_ on the back of my neck, _x000D_ on my right big toe... _x000D_ _x000D_ Oh, my friend, _x000D_ all that you see of me _x000D_ is just a shell, _x000D_ and the rest belongs to Love.
RumiRead
Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything.
Katharine HepburnRead
My idea is this, that when you only love a little you're naturally not jealous — or are only jealous also a little, so that it doesn't matter. But when you love in a deeper and intenser way, then you're in the very same proportion jealous; your jealousy has intensity and, no doubt, ferocity.
Henry JamesRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.