Jean Vanier Quotes (36 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Jean Vanier: 36 quotes 23 likes

Famous Jean Vanier Quotes

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

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.”

Jean Vanier

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015
From interviews and talks

“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.”

Jean Vanier

On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009
From interviews and talks

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

Jean Vanier

From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Community And Growth, 1979

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

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Becoming Human

Jean Vanier Quotes about love

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

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

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

Jean Vanier

Source: Finding Peace

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Google this: Jean Vanier and what it means to be human http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/google-this-jean-vanier-a_b_7484702.html Huffington Post, 02/06/2015
From interviews and talks

“Love is to recognize that the other person is a person, is precious, is important and has value.. Each one has a gift to bring to others. Each one has his or her mission in the larger family of humanity. Each one reveals the secret face of God.”

Jean Vanier

Google this: Jean Vanier and what it means to be human http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/google-this-jean-vanier-a_b_7484702.html Huffington Post, 02/06/2015
From interviews and talks

“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. We are not striving for perfect community. 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 would want them to be. Community means giving them space, helping them to grow. It means also receiving from them so that we too can grow. It is giving each other freedom; it is giving each other trust; it is confirming but also challenging each other. We give dignity to each other by the way we listen to each other, in a spirit of trust and of dying to oneself so that the other may live, grow and give.”

Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community, 1992, pp 35-36
From books

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

Jean Vanier Quotes about people

“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.”

Jean Vanier

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015
From interviews and talks

“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.”

Jean Vanier

From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Community And Growth, 1979

“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.”

Jean Vanier

From books
Source: Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, 2001

“.. we will continue to despise people until we have recognized, loved, and accepted what is despicable in ourselves. So that, then we go down, what is it that is despicable in ourselves? And there are some elements despicable in ourselves, which we don't want to look at, but which are part of our natures, that we are mortal.”

Jean Vanier

On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009
From interviews and talks

“We are very fragile in front of the future. Accidents and sicknesses is the reality. We are born in extreme weakness and our life will end in extreme weakness. So this, people don't want to hold on to that. They want to prove something. They want security. They want to have big bank accounts and all that sort of stuff. But then also, hold lots of fears within us.”

Jean Vanier

On Being, The Wisdom of Tenderness (transcript) http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/transcript/1369 Interview with Krista Tippett, December 24, 2009
From interviews and talks

“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

Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, 2001
From books

Jean Vanier Quotes

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Becoming Human

Joy , Parting , Personality

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

Jean Vanier

Love , God

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

Jean Vanier

Google this: Jean Vanier and what it means to be human http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/google-this-jean-vanier-a_b_7484702.html Huffington Post, 02/06/2015
From interviews and talks
Source: Community And Growth

Love

“Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness”

Jean Vanier

“Jesus is the starving, the parched, the prisoner, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the dying. Jesus is the oppressed, the poor. To live with Jesus is to live with the poor. To live with the poor is to live with Jesus.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Finding Peace

Love , Pain , Peace , Justice

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

Love , Lie , Communication

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

Life , Communication , Support , Suffering

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

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

Children , Secret

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

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

Love , Exercises , Communication

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Community And Growth

Life , Communication

“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)”

Jean Vanier

Source: Becoming Human

World , Hope , Change , Time

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Source: Becoming Human

Life

“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.”

Jean Vanier

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015
From interviews and talks

“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.”

Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier, Finding Peace, pp 47-48
From books

Life , Death , God , Forgiveness

“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.”

Jean Vanier

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015
From interviews and talks

Love , People

“The strong need the weak in order to become more human, more compassionate.”

Jean Vanier

Jean Vanier: Philosopher.. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jean-vanier-philosopher-who-dislikes-the-religion-of-success-wins-12m-templeton-prize-for-promoting-spiritual-awareness-10101621.html The Independent, 11 March 2015
From interviews and talks

Strong

“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”

Jean Vanier

Love , Heart