Henri Nouwen quotes

“Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.”

— Henri Nouwen

“A life without a lonely place, that is, without a quiet center, becomes destructive.”

— Henri Nouwen

“Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy.”

— Henri Nouwen

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

— Henri Nouwen

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means 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.”

— Henri Nouwen

“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 healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.”

— Henri Nouwen

“In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.”

— Henri Nouwen

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

— Henri Nouwen

“The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realised.”

— 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

“Jesus didn't say, 'Blessed are those who care for the poor.' He said, 'Blessed are we where we are poor, where we are broken.' It is there that God loves us deeply and pulls us into deeper communion with himself.”

— Henri Nouwen

“Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.”

— Henri Nouwen

“Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.”

— Henri 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

“God wants you to live for others and to live that presence well.”

— Henri Nouwen

“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

“If fear is the great enemy of intimacy, love is its true friend.”

— Henri Nouwen

“One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal.”

— Henri Nouwen

“Our first responsibility in the midst of violence is to prevent it from destroying us.”

— Henri Nouwen

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

— Henri Nouwen

“Peacemaking is a full-time vocation that includes each member of God's people.”

— Henri 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

“Prayer is the most concrete way to make our home in God.”

— Henri Nouwen

“Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger.”

— 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