Henri Quotes

As a general remark, I would say we must move from the moral to the mystical life.

This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without condition or limits.

The crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.

In solitude we become aware that we were together before we came together and that life is not a creation of our will but rather an obedient response to the reality of our being united.

The third discipline is community. Whom do you choose as your companions? Whom do you choose to be friends with, to live with? Are they people who love you, and care for you, and nurture you?

It is precisely in times of spiritual dryness that we must hold on to our spiritual discipline so that we can grow into new intimacy with God.

The great teachers are always those who can live the tension. They are not criticizing everybody, they're not complaining. They give young people a vision.

To be baptized means to make the passage with the people of Israel and with Jesus from slavery to freedom and from death to new life. It is a commitment to a life in and through Jesus.

Community is where humility and glory touch.

When I could no longer cling to my normal supports I discovered that true support and real safety lie far beyond the structures of our world.

If you are not able to be silent, you will not be able to speak well.

Television is obviously an enormous intruder. Quite often people say they have no time, but in fact they waste a lot of time on things that are not healthy.

As long as we have our stories there is hope.

For me the university has always been an ideal context for spiritual formation. I always felt that if you want to offer spiritual formation at the university, you can.

Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going?-are not questions with an answer but questions that open us up to new questions which lead us deeper into the unshakeable mystery of existence.

The university has become a place that prepares you for the fights in the world.

It may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena.

To invent is to discern, to choose.

A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature.

Wherever God is adored, he is adored in virtue of a supernatural doctrine; wherever he is despised, he is despised in the name of nature and reason.

Christianity is not a law of bondage; and if it respect the hand of God which sometimes raises up tyrants, it draws up where obedience degenerates into guilty cowardice.

Prophecy, that universal and perpetual torch by which faith is enlightened.

Through art mysterious bonds of understanding and of knowledge are established among men.

Completion does not depend on material representation. The work is done when that special thing has been said.

The pictures which do not represent an intense interest cannot expect to create an intense interest.

After all, the goal is not making art. It is living a life. Those who live their lives will leave the stuff that is really art.

A work should contain its total meaning within itself and should impress it on the spectator before he even knows the subject.

Spirit borrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores them to matter in the form of movements which it has stamped with its own freedom.

The vital spirit. L'élan vital

Only a fraction of the camera's possibilities interests me - the marvelous mixture of emotion and geometry, together in a single instant.

Photography appears to be an easy activity; in fact it is a varied and ambiguous process in which the only common denominator among its practitioners is in the instrument.

In every photographer there is something of a stroller.

I love painting. As far as photography is concerned, I understand nothing.

As it is impossible to be outside God, the best is consciously to dwell in Him.

The immense majority of our species are candidates for humanity, and nothing more.

The tragic solemnity of existence strikes us with terrible force on that morning when we wake to find the mournful words "too late" ringing in our ears.

The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public.

The best way to learn to swim is to dive.

The truly original artist invents his own signs.

Drawing is of the Spirit and color of the Senses.

Simple colours can affect the intimate feelings with all the more force because they are simple.

Starting to paint, I felt gloriously free, quiet, and alone.

Exactitude is not truth. [Fr., L'exactitude n'est pas la verite.]

I am unable to distinguish between the feeling I have for life and my way of expressing it.

Put a colour upon a canvas - it not only colours with that colour the part of the canvas to which the colour has been applied, but it also colours the surrounding space with the complementary.

A colourist makes his presence known even in a simple charcoal drawing.

The first duty of wine is to be red. Don't talk to me of your white wines.

Your heart is greater than your wounds.

I trust in you, Lord, but keep helping me in my moments of distrust and doubt.

We must ask ourselves how many times others would benefit more from our silence than from our words.