Jean Vanier quotes

Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness. (Jean Vanier)
Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live. View quote
Jean Vanier
I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes. View quote
Jean Vanier
To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefor unloveable. Loneliness is a taste of death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget the inner pain. View quote
Jean Vanier
Love doesn't mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness. View quote
Jean Vanier
To love someone is to show to them their beauty, their worth and their importance. View quote
Jean Vanier
Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy; every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed. View quote
Jean Vanier
Life is a succession of crises and moments when we have to rediscover who we are and what we really want. View quote
Jean Vanier
When we love and respect people, revealing to them their value, they can begin to come out from behind the walls that protect them. View quote
Jean Vanier
Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts. View quote
Jean Vanier
Community begins in mystery and ends in administration. Leaders move away from people and into paper. (Jean Vanier)
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. View quote
Jean Vanier
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) View quote
Jean Vanier
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. View quote
Jean Vanier
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. View quote
Jean Vanier
Peace can only come as people begin to meet each other. Those that do have the courage to cross the road, however, to look kindly at people and to listen to them with tenderness, will find people much like themselves, people seeking to be loved for who they are. And that it is OK for each one of us to admit, "I don't have all the truth.... I am vulnerable, I am broken. I need help." Then comes the realization, "I need your help. I need your friendship." In the end, what you will find, and what you will help the world to discover, Vanier said, is what it means to be human. View quote
Jean Vanier
There is that little compass within each one of us where we know what is right, what is just, what is good, what is true. View quote
Jean Vanier
Try and find somebody who is lonely. And when you go to see them, they will see you as the messiah. Go and visit a little old lady who has no friends or family. Bring her flowers. People say ‘but that's nothing.' It is nothing-but it's also everything. It always begins with small little things. It all began in Bethlehem. That was pretty small. View quote
Jean Vanier
To look forward, to want life, means we have to be willing to look backwards and become more conscious of all those who have hurt us, all that is broken in us and that has brought us inner deaths, hurts that we may have hidden and stifled. It means that we acknowledge the story of our origins, of our own lives, see and accept our brokenness and the times we also have hurt others. When we have accepted who we are and what we need in order to grow in compassion and peacemaking, we can move forward to give life. To forgive is a gift of God that permits us to let go of our past hurts. View quote
Jean Vanier
What people with disabilities want is to relate. This is something unique. It makes people who are closed up in the head become human. The wonderful thing about people with disabilities is that when someone important comes, they don't care. They care about the relationship. So they have a healing power, a healing power of love. View quote
Jean Vanier
Those we most often exclude from the normal life of society, people with disabilities, have profound lessons to teach us. When we do include them, they add richly to our lives and add immensely to our world. (Jean Vanier)
The strong need the weak in order to become more human, more compassionate. View quote
Jean Vanier
Before being Christians or Jews or Muslims, before being Americans or Russians or Africans, before being generals or priests, rabbis or imams, before having visible or invisible disabilities, we are all human beings with hearts capable of loving. View quote
Jean Vanier
Somewhere, the deepest desire for us all is to be appreciated, to be loved, to be seen as somebody of value. But not just seen - and Aristotle makes a difference between being admired and being loved. When you admire people, you put them on pedestals. When you love people, you want to be together. So really, the first meeting I had with people with disabilities, what touched me was their cry for relationship. View quote
Jean Vanier
The great thing about people with intellectual disabilities is that they're not people who discuss philosophy... What they want is fun and laughter, to do things together and fool around, and laughter is at the heart of community. View quote
Jean Vanier