Excerpt from an address by Joseph Wresinski in Leuven, Belgium, 22 November 1972.
Whatever people think,
each person, no matter how poor they are,
possesses the same potential for love,
the same capacity to love and be loved.
There is no reason to think that some would be able
to enter into the world of creative, loving relationships
while others would be barred.
People need our faith, our ideals, our capabilities,
our art, our skills. For them, we must be artists because each life, however lowly, is inherently beautiful and we must make of every life a work of art.
This artistic gift with which the poorest are endowed will continue to multiply because the life that is in them cannot be extinguished.
A simple contact with another can be an element of this art
provided that it is filled with tenderness and poetry;
provided that it engages us
and reaches to the depths of our beings.
How else can we restore the intensity of life,
if not by experiencing such poetry with others?