Best 101 quotes of Jean Vanier on MyQuotes

A community is only a community when the majority of its members are making the transition from 'the community for myself' to 'myself for the community'.

A community that is growing rich and seeks only to defend its goods and its reputation is dying. It has ceased to grow in love. A community is alive when it is poor and its members feel they have to work together and remain united, if only to ensure that they can all eat tomorrow!

A community which refuses to welcome - whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors - is dying spiritually.

A growing community must integrate three elements: a life of silent prayer, a life of service and above all of listening to the poor, and a community life through which all its members can grow in their own gift.

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

A society which discards those who are weak and non-productive risks exaggerating the development of reason, organisation, aggression and the desire to dominate. It becomes a society without a heart, without kindness - a rational and sad society, lacking celebration, divided within itself and given to competition, rivalry and, finally, violence.

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

Avoid the poison in your life that brings you turmoil.

But let us not put our sights too high. We do not have to be saviours of the world! We are simply human beings, enfolded in weakness and in hope, called together to change our world one heart at a time. (163)

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

Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don't need a lot of money to be happy--in fact, the opposite.

Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we want them to be.

Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: "He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community." A community is not an abstract ideal.

Each human being, however small or weak, has something to bring to humanity. As we start to really get to know others, as we begin to listen to each other's stories, things begin to change. We begin the movement from exclusion to inclusion, from fear to trust, from closedness to openness, from judgment and prejudice to forgiveness and understanding. It is a movement of the heart.

Each person is sacred, no matter what his or her culture, religion, handicap, or fragility. Each person is created in God’s image; each one has a heart, a capacity to love and to be loved.

Each person with his or her history of being accepted or rejected, with his or her past history of inner pain and difficulties in relationships, is different. But in each one there is a yearning for communion and belonging, but at the same time a fear of it. Love is what we most want, yet it is what we fear the most.

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

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

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

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

'Going home' is a journey to the heart of who we are, a place where we can be ourselves and welcome the reality of our beauty and our pain. From this acceptance of ourselves, we can accept others as they are and we can see our common humanity.

Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness

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

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

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

I believe every act of violence is also a message that needs to be understood. Violence should not be answered just by greater violence but by real understanding. We must ask: 'Where is the violence coming from? What is its meaning?

I do not believe we can truly enter into our own inner pain and wounds and open our hearts to others unless we have had an experience of God, unless we have been touched by God. We must be touched by the Father in order to experience, as the prodigal son did, that no matter how wounded we may be, we are loved. And not only are we loved, but we too are called to heal and to liberate. This healing power in us will not come from our capacities and our riches, but in and through our poverty. We are called to discover that God can bring peace, compassion and love through our wounds.

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

If we love (the poor) people, we want to identify with them and share with them.

I have discovered the value of psychology and psychiatry, that their teachings can undo knots in us and permit life to flow again and aid us in becoming more truly human.

In any case, community is not about perfect people. It is about people who are bonded to each other, each of whom is a mixture of good and bad, darkness and light, love and hate.

...Individualistic material progress and the desire to gain prestige by coming out on top have taken over from the sense of fellowship, compassion and community. Now people live more or less on their own in a small house, jealously guarding their goods and planning to acquire more, with a notice on the gate that says, 'Beware of the Dog.

In the end, the most important thing is not to do things for people who are poor and in distress, but to enter into relationship with them, to be with them and help them find confidence in themselves and discover their own gifts.

I remember that throughout history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it always...whenever you are in doubt that that is God's way - the way the world is meant to be. Think of that and then try to do His way.

It is difficult to make people understand that the ideal doesn't exist, that personal equilibrium and the harmony they dream of come only after years and years of struggle, and that even then they come only as flashes of grace and peace.

It is my belief that in our mad world where there is so much pain, rivalry, hatred, violence, inequality, and oppression, it is people who are weak, rejected, marginalized, counted as useless, who can become a source of life and of salvation for us as individuals as well as for our world. And it is my hope that each one of you may experience the incredible gift of the friendship of people who are poor and weak, that you too, may receive life from them. For they call us to love, to communion, to compassion and to community.

It is only when we stand up, with all our failings and sufferings, and try to support others rather than withdraw into ourselves, that we can fully live the life of community.

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

Loneliness is the fundamental force that urgees mystics to a deeper union with God... An experience of God quenches this thirst for the absolute but at the same time, paradoxiacally, whets it, because this is an experience that can never be total; by necessity, the knowledge of God is always partial. So loneliness opens up mystics to a desire to love each other and every human being as God loves them.

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

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

Love is an act of endless forgiveness.

Love is to recognize that the other person is a person, is precious, is important and has value.

Machines help us do things more quickly and efficiently, but they can also destroy some community activities. Machines can also throw the weakest people out of work and this would be sad, because their small contribution to the housework or cooking is their way of giving something to the community. People who are capable of doing things very quickly with the help of machines become tremendously busy, always active, in charge of everyone - a bit like machines themselves.

Many people confuse authority and the power of efficiency, as if the first role of people with responsibility is to take decisions, command effectively and so exercise power. But their role first of all is to be a person to whom others can turn for help and advice, to provide security, to affirm, to support, to encourage and to guide.

One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn't as individuals.

Peace is the fruit of love, a love that is also justice. But to grow in love requires work -- hard work. And it can bring pain because it implies loss -- loss of the certitudes, comforts, and hurts that shelter and define us.

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

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

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.