One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.

“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.” — Mother Teresa.

Thus spoke Mother Teresa, the saint of the poor, whose hands touched the untouchable and whose heart became a shelter for the forgotten. In her words lies not mere poetry, but a lamentation — a cry against the silent plague of the modern age: loneliness, isolation, and indifference. She called it a disease, for it kills not the body, but the spirit; it starves the soul of recognition, of meaning, of belonging. To be “nobody to anybody” is to drift unseen through the world — to live without love, and to die without memory. And in her gentle voice, she warned the world that this is the greatest poverty of all.

The origin of this quote rises from the streets of Calcutta, where Mother Teresa spent her life among the dying, the orphaned, and the abandoned. She saw, with eyes purified by compassion, that the greatest suffering was not hunger or thirst, but the pain of being unwanted. She once found a man dying alone in the gutter. When she lifted him in her arms, he whispered, “All my life I’ve been nobody. But now I die as somebody — because you cared.” In that single act of mercy, she revealed the truth behind her words: that to be seen, to be acknowledged, even for a moment, can restore the dignity of a lifetime.

From the wisdom of the ancients, we know that man was never meant to live alone. The philosophers of Greece called it the law of the polis — that each soul exists not for itself, but for the harmony of the whole. The sages of the East taught that to serve another is to serve the divine within them. Even the warriors of old fought not for glory alone, but for their comrades beside them. Humanity was born in community, and it dies in solitude. Thus, when Mother Teresa calls this isolation a “disease,” she speaks of the breaking of that sacred bond — when the heart forgets how to reach another heart.

There are many who walk among us infected by this invisible sickness. The old man whose children no longer visit. The young woman surrounded by friends yet unseen in her pain. The beggar passed by with averted eyes. In our world of noise and screens, where words are endless but connection rare, this disease of indifference spreads swiftly. We build towers higher than the clouds but fail to build bridges between hearts. And what use is progress, if the soul remains starved of love?

Think of Vincent van Gogh, the artist of stars and sorrow. His paintings burned with beauty, yet in life, he was unseen, unloved, “nobody to anybody.” He wrote, “I feel a failure. That’s it — it is as if I am nobody.” Only after death did the world awaken to his light. His story, like Mother Teresa’s warning, reminds us that genius, wealth, or fame cannot cure the loneliness of being unseen. What heals is connection — one heart reaching another, one soul saying, “I see you, I care for you, you matter.”

And so, what lesson shall we draw from her words? It is this: to heal the world, begin by seeing it. Look into the eyes of others — not through them. Speak with warmth, even to the forgotten. Write letters, offer a touch, give your time, your attention, your presence. These are not small things; they are the medicine of the heart. For when you make another person feel seen, you become the cure to their solitude — and to your own. The smallest gesture of kindness ripples like light through the darkness.

Mother Teresa’s wisdom is not a call to pity, but to participation in love. She teaches that no one is too small to matter, and no act of compassion too simple to transform a life. The antidote to this disease is within every hand, every voice, every soul willing to care. Be somebody to somebody. Lift the fallen, listen to the unheard, smile at the forgotten. For in doing so, you will find the hidden truth of existence — that to love and to be loved is the highest form of life, and the only cure for the world’s greatest disease.

So remember her words as both warning and commandment: “One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.” Do not let your heart grow cold in a crowded world. Let your compassion be fierce, your presence generous, your humanity visible. For when you make another feel that they belong, you defeat the oldest enemy of all — the silence of being unseen — and in that victory, you become the healer the world so desperately needs.