If You Cant Feed A Hundred

The official Missionaries of Charity website (motherteresa.org) lists this quote among false attributions to Mother Teresa. This is particularly striking given how widely it is reproduced. An authenticated version of the underlying idea does appear in Teresa's documented interviews: "I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one." The popular one-sentence form appears to be a compression of that sentiment by an unknown hand.