Henri Nouwen quotes

Henri Nouwen was a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, and renowned spiritual writer. His works on spirituality, compassion, and vulnerability have inspired millions around the world. He devoted his life to exploring the human experience of faith, community, and God's love. Here are 78 of his quotes:

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...that is a friend who cares. (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. View quote
Henri Nouwen
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. View quote
Henri Nouwen
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. View quote
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 much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. View quote
Henri Nouwen
Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity. View quote
Henri Nouwen
What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. View quote
Henri Nouwen
My hope is that the description of God's love in my life will give you the freedom and the courage to discover... God's love in yours. View quote
Henri Nouwen
We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers, we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much care as anyone we care for. View quote
Henri Nouwen
Prayer is not a pious decoration of life but the breath of human existence. View quote
Henri Nouwen
To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer. (Henri Nouwen)
People who pray stand receptive before the world. They no longer grab but caress, they no longer bite but kiss, they no longer examine but admire. View quote
Henri Nouwen
Although we tend to think about saints as holy and pious, and picture them with halos above their heads and ecstatic gazes, true saints are much more accessible. They are men and women like us, who live ordinary lives and struggle with ordinary problems. What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God and God's people. View quote
Henri Nouwen
Your body needs to be held and to hold, to be touched and to touch. None of these needs is to be despised, denied, or repressed. But you have to keep searching for your body's deeper need, the need for genuine love. Every time you are able to go beyond the body's superficial desires for love, you are bringing your body home and moving toward integration and unity. View quote
Henri Nouwen
For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved. View quote
Henri Nouwen
The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don't see the results. View quote
Henri Nouwen
The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection. View quote
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. View quote
Henri Nouwen
Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared. View quote
Henri Nouwen
Our glory is hidden in our pain, if we allow God to bring the gift of himself in our experience of it. View quote
Henri Nouwen
To be a Christian who is willing to travel with Christ on his downward road requires being willing to detach oneself constantly from any need to be relevant, and to trust ever more deeply the Word of God. (Henri Nouwen)
God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful and painful. View quote
Henri Nouwen
Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God. View quote
Henri Nouwen
The Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. God loves us, not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love. View quote
Henri Nouwen
The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now. View quote
Henri Nouwen