Nouwen Quotes
Collection of top 100 famous quotes about Nouwen
Nouwen Quotes & Sayings
Happy to read and share the best inspirational Nouwen quotes, sayings and quotations on Wise Famous Quotes.
I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.
— Henri Nouwen
Jesus changes our history from a random series of sad incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity for a change of heart.
— Henri J.M. 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 J.M. Nouwen
The word that seems best to summarize the desire of the human heart is 'communion.' ... wherever we look it is communion that we seek.
— Henri Nouwen
Becoming a child is living the Beatitudes and so finding the narrow gate into the Kingdom.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
As the beloved son, I have to claim my full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Emit gratitude as though it was done
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
When we break bread and give it to each other, fear vanishes and God becomes very close.
— Henri Nouwen
The soul of the artist cannot remain hidden.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Jesus was a revolutionary, who did not become an extremist, since he did not offer an ideology, but Himself.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
coming home" meant, for me, walking step by step toward the One who awaits me with open arms and wants to hold me in an eternal embrace. I
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.
— Henri Nouwen
There is within you a lamb and a lion. Spiritual maturity is the ability to let lamb and lion lie down together.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Solitude, community, and ministry are certainly not just for celibates! Celibates also have a hard time keeping up.
— Henri Nouwen
The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don't see the results.
— 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
There are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life.
— Henri Nouwen
Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.
— Henri Nouwen
I want my work to create space where people can meet God, rather than give them something they can "apply" to their daily life.
— Henri Nouwen
The measure of your solitude is the measure of your capacity for communion.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
A happy life is a life for others.
— Henri Nouwen
We need you to be a father who can claim for himself the authority of true compassion.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Prayer, which is breathing with the Spirit of Jesus, leads us to this immense knowledge.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Spiritual reading, therefore, is slow, deliberate, meditative reading in which we allow the words to penetrate our heart and question our spirit.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
To care for others requires an ever-increasing acceptance.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
A good death is a death in solidarity with others. To prepare ourselves for a good death, we must develop or deepen this sense of solidarity.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship.
— Henri Nouwen
This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.
— Henri Nouwen
We want to live as people chosen, blessed, and broken, and thus become food for the world.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
When we face death with hope, we can live life with generosity.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home.
— Henri J.M. 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
I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
— Henri Nouwen
I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted; then I realized that the interruptions were my work.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
I now see that the hands that forgive, console, heal, and offer a festive meal must become my own.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.
— Henri Nouwen
Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.
— Henri Nouwen
Is my growing old making me any closer to Christ? Am I only getting older or am I getting more godly?
— Henri Nouwen
There are many elder sons and elder daughters who are lost while still at home.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
O Lord, make this Lenten season different from the other ones. Let me find you again. Amen. — Henri Nouwen
God should be sought, but we cannot find God. We can only be found by him.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know that I am moving from fear to love.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
To live in the present, we must deeply believe that what is most important is in the here and now.
— Henri Nouwen
Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Gratitude is the most fruitful way of deepening your consciousness that you are a Devine choice.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful.
— Henri Nouwen
As Father, the only authority he claims for himself is the authority of compassion.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
We must ask ourselves how many times others would benefit more from our silence than from our words.
— Henri Nouwen
Community is the fruit of our capacity to make the interests of others more important than our own.
— Henri Nouwen
Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply.
— Henri Nouwen
Reading with children is an enormous gift to them. It's a great honor to invite children to read with adults.
— Henri Nouwen
Thus, our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
when God created man and woman in his own image, he saw that "it was very good," and, despite the dark voices, no man or woman can ever change that.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, "This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal."
— Henri Nouwen
You can only seek God when you have already found God. The desire for God's unconditional love is the fruit of having been touched by that love.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Becoming like the heavenly Father is not just one important aspect of Jesus' teaching, it is the very heart of his message.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Although I am a committed Catholic priest, and nowhere hide that fact, my focus is very much a spiritual journey.
— Henri Nouwen
truly accepting love, forgiveness, and healing is often much harder than giving it.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
When I look through God's eyes at my lost self and discover God's joy at my coming home, then my life may become less anguished and more trusting.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Grateful people learn to celebrate even amid life's hard and harrowing memories because they know that pruning is no mere punishment, but preparation.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
We are called to witness, always with our lives and sometimes with our words, to the great things God has done for us.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
As long as we have our stories there is hope.
— Henri Nouwen
First, silence makes us pilgrims. Secondly, silence guards the fire within. Thirdly, silence teaches us to speak.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
In Christ we live as God's beloved before we were born and after we have died; all the circumstances in between will not negate that. Jean
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say to God: 'I love you, too.'
— Henri Nouwen
Today worrying means to be occupied and preoccupied with many things, while at the same time being bored, resentful, depressed, and very lonely.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Solitude is the furnace in which transformation takes place.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal of all peacemaking.
— Henri Nouwen
Whatever happens to me in life, I must believe that somewhere, In the mess or madness of it all, There is a sacred potential -
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Jesus' whole life and mission involve accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God's love.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Whereas discipline without discipleship leads to rigid formalism, discipleship without discipline ends in sentimental romanticism.
— Henri J.M. Nouwen
Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next.
— 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
