Henri Nouwen Quotes

Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life.

What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.

For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.

You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.

Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as those whom God has given you to love.

My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.

In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.

The main question is not, how can we hide our wounds...but how can we put our woundedness in service to others.

O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again. Amen.

Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.

The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.

Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.

The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.

Our life is...a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.

Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.

I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.

Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.

Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.

Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.

The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.

In a strange way the spiritual life isn't "useful" or "successful." But it is meant to be fruitful. And fruitfulness comes out of brokenness.

Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.

Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, "I love you, too."

In our own woundedness, we can become sources of life for others.

If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.

The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.

This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.

The church is not an institution forcing us to follow rules but a community inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its table.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.

Our glory is hidden in our pain, if we allow God to bring the gift of himself in our experience of it.

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.

God, help me to see others not as enemies or as ungodly but rather as thirsty people. And give me the courage and compassion to offer your Living Water, which alone quenches deep thirst.

Keep a space where God can let something totally new take place.

Forgiveness changes the way we remember.

When we keep claiming the light, we will find ourselves becoming more and more radiant.

Compassion can never coexist with judgement because judgement creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other.

I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.

Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.

Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don't see the results.

My hope is that the description of God's love in my life will give you the freedom and the courage to discover... God's love in yours.

The real question is: how can I live so that my death will be fruitful for others?

Friends share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.

We just have to recognize life for what it is: a gift to be grateful for, not a property to cling to, hoard, or defend.

When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus.

Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.

Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you'd rather not go.

We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.