Henri Nouwen Quotes

130 Sourced Quotes

Prayer requires that we stand in God's presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. As disciples, we find not some but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern.

Henri Nouwen
Aging does not need to be hidden or denied, but can be understood, affirmed and experienced as a process of growth by which the mystery of life is slowly revealed to us.

Henri Nouwen
The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark.

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

Henri Nouwen
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.

Henri Nouwen
Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: 'You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests' - the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam; the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light.

Henri Nouwen
The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity and held safe in an everlasting embrace... We must dare to opt consciously for our chosenness and not allow our emotions, feelings, or passions to seduce us into self-rejection.

Henri Nouwen
When we learn to move through suffering, rather than avoid it, then we greet it differently. We become willing to let it teach us. We even begin to see how God can use it for some larger end.

Henri Nouwen
Ministry is a very confronting service. It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness. It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts.

Henri Nouwen
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
The great # conversion called for by Jesus is to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God.

Henri Nouwen
When you are still young and not yet adult, you want to hold everything in your own hands, but if you have your hands open toward prayer, you are able to stretch out your arms and let yourself be led without knowing where. You know only the freedom which God's breath has brought you will lead to new life, even if the cross is the only sign of it you can see.

Henri Nouwen
Everything changes radically from the moment you know yourself as being sent into this world.

Henri Nouwen
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.

Henri Nouwen
Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.

Henri Nouwen
Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.

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

Henri Nouwen
Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.

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

Henri Nouwen
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
Our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.

Henri Nouwen
Nuclear man is the man who realizes that his creative powers hold the potential for self-destruction. He sees that in this nuclear age vast new industrial complexes enable man to produce in one hour that which he labored over for years in the past, but he also realizes that these same industries have disturbed the ecological balance and, through air and noise pollution, have contaminated his own milieu...

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

Henri Nouwen
Let's dare to enter into an intimate relationship with God without fear, trusting that we will receive love and always more love.

Henri Nouwen
Any dance of celebration must weave both the sorrows and the blessings into a joyful step....To heal is to let the Holy Spirit call me to dance, to believe again, even amid my pain, that God will orchestrate and guide my life.

Henri Nouwen
From the moment we claim the truth of being the beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are.

Henri Nouwen
Which questions guide our lives? Which questions do we make our own? Which questions deserve our undivided and full personal commitment? Finding the right questions is crucial to finding the answers.

Henri Nouwen
There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.

Henri Nouwen
Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth.

Henri Nouwen
However, community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.
Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.
The question, therefore, is not 'How can we make community?' but, 'How can we develop and nurture giving hearts?'

Henri Nouwen