Henri Nouwen Quotes

Quotes about:

• Nobody escapes being wounded. We are all wounded people, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. The main question is not, 'How can we hide our wounds?' so we don't have to be embarrassed, but 'How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?' When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.

  Henri Nouwen

  Healing, People, Shame

  687 Copy quote

• When I trust deeply that today God is truly with me and holds me safe in a divine embrace, guiding every one of my steps I can let go of my anxious need to know how tomorrow will look, or what will happen next month or next year. I can be fully where I am and pay attention to the many signs of God's love within me and around me.

  Henri Nouwen

  Letting Go, Years, Needs

  661 Copy quote

• Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love?' These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will be many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.

  Henri Nouwen

  Letting Go, Real, Healing

  658 Copy quote

• Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. 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.

  Henri Nouwen

  Lonely, Hurt, Pain

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

  722 Copy quote
• 

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

  Henri Nouwen

  People, Attention, Want

  Henri Nouwen (2013). “Discernment: Reading the signs of daily life”, p.97, SPCK

  498 Copy quote

• When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

  Henri Nouwen

  Life, Motivational, Friendship

  "Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life". Book by Henri Nouwen, 1974.

  796 Copy quote

• Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.

  Henri Nouwen

  Love, War, Emotional

  "You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living".

  628 Copy quote

• This is what life is about. It is being sent on a trip by a loving God, who is waiting at home for our return and is eager to watch the slides we took and hear about the friends we made. When we travel with the eyes and ears of the God who sent us, we will see wonderful sights, hear wonderful sounds, meet wonderful people ... and be happy to return home.

  Henri Nouwen

  Home, Eye, Sight

  587 Copy quote

• Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God's guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness.

  Henri Nouwen

  Disappointment, Hands, Darkness

  Henri Nouwen (2004). “Turn My Mourning into Dancing”, p.60, Thomas Nelson Inc

  466 Copy quote

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

  Henri Nouwen

  Heart, Thinking, Mind

  397 Copy quote

• 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.

  Henri Nouwen

  Bridges, Hatred, Division

  129 Copy quote

• Your heart is greater than your wounds.

  Henri Nouwen

  Heart, Greater, Wounds

  6 Copy quote

• It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts.
  In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.

  Henri Nouwen

  Effort, Solitude, Important

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

  436 Copy quote

• Life is a gift, not to possess, but to share.

  Henri Nouwen

  Joy, Life Is, Life Is A Gift

  10 Copy quote

• Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or common histories. It is a bond stronger than sexual union can create, deeper than a shared fate can solidify, and even more intimate than the bonds of marriage or community. Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love. Friendship makes all of life shine brightly.

  Henri Nouwen

  Fate, Giving, Goal

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.7, Harper Collins

  467 Copy quote

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

  Henri Nouwen

  Inspirational, Thinking, Way

  233 Copy quote

• God doesn't give us just enough. God gives us more than enough: more bread and fish than we can eat, more love than we dared to ask for.

  Henri Nouwen

  Giving, Bread, Enough

  5 Copy quote

• The farther the outward journey takes you, the deeper the inward journey must be.

  Henri Nouwen

  Journey, Inward, Deeper

  Henri Nouwen (2010). “The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom”, p.94, Image

  15 Copy quote

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

  Henri Nouwen

  Block, Knowledge Of God, Wonder

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (1981). “A cry for mercy: prayers from the Genesee”, Doubleday Books

  32 Copy quote

• If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.

  Henri Nouwen

  Problem, Rejected, Thousand

  Source: www.liguorian.org

  30 Copy quote

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

  Henri Nouwen

  Spiritual, Maturity, Knowing

  61 Copy quote

• One of the tragedies of our life is that we keep forgetting who we are

  Henri Nouwen

  Tragedy, Who We Are, Life Is

  21 Copy quote

• Forgiveness changes the way we remember.

  Henri Nouwen

  Way, Remember

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2009). “Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith”, p.29, Harper Collins

  39 Copy quote

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

  Henri Nouwen

  Opportunity, Deep Love, Giving

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, Hachette UK

  45 Copy quote

• But what I would like to say is that the spiritual life is a life in which you gradually learn to listen to a voice that says something else, that says, "You are the beloved and on you my favour rests."... I want you to hear that voice. It is not a very loud voice because it is an intimate voice. It comes from a very deep place. It is soft and gentle. I want you to gradually hear that voice. We both have to hear that voice and to claim for ourselves that that voice speaks the truth, our truth. It tells us who we are.

  Henri Nouwen

  Christian, Spiritual, Voice

  346 Copy quote

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