Top 500 Henri J.M. Nouwen Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say to God: ‘I love you, too.’”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

102. “Resentment and gratitude cannot coexist, since resentment blocks the perception and experience of life as a gift. My resentment tells me that I don’t receive what I deserve. It always manifests itself in envy.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

103. “Do not hesitate to love and to love deeply.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

105. “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.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

106. “There are as many ways to pray as there are moments in life.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

107. “The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

108. “The friend who cares makes it clear that whatever happens in the external world, being present to each other is what really matters. In fact, it matters more than pain, illness, or even death.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

109. “Friendship and love are impossible without a mutual vulnerability.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

110. “As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their “right” place.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

111. “Keep a space where God can let something totally new take place.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

112. “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

113. “To be baptized means to make the passage with the people of Israel and with Jesus from slavery to freedom and from death to new life. It is a commitment to a life in and through Jesus.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

114. “Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

115. “Trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

116. “When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

117. “Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

118. “To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

119. “Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

120. “The soul of the artist cannot remain hidden.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

121. “We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

122. “Every time we decide to be grateful it will be easier to see new things to be grateful for. Gratitude begets gratitude, just as love begets love.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

123. “As ministers our greatest temptation is toward too many words. They weaken our faith and make us lukewarm. But silence is a sacred discipline, a guard of the Holy Spirit.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

124. “I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

125. “I am deeply convince that the necessity of prayer, and to pray unceasingly, is not as much based on our desire for God as on God’s desire for us. It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

126. “If you are not able to be silent, you will not be able to speak well.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

127. “Intimacy is not a happy medium. It is a way of being in which the tension between distance and closeness is dissolved and a new horizon appears. Intimacy is beyond fear.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

128. “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

129. “The spiritual life is a life beyond moods. It is a life in which we choose joy and do not allow ourselves to become victims of passing feelings of happiness or depression.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

130. “Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

132. “By giving words to these intimate experiences I can make my life available to others.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

133. “The leap of faith always means loving without expecting to be loved in return, giving without wanting to receive, inviting without hoping to be invited, holding without asking to be held.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

134. “Be sure that you make a difference in the world.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

135. “When we break bread and give it to each other, fear vanishes and God becomes very close.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

136. “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 J.M. Nouwen

137. “Living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

138. “You are the heir to the Kingdom. Prosperity is your birth right and you hold the key to more abundance in every area of your life then you can possibly imagine.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

139. “Forgiveness changes the way we remember.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

140. “The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

141. “We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

142. “Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you the freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find the many signs which point out the way to a new land.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

143. “God has created you and me with a heart that only God’s love can satisfy. And every other love will be partial, will be real, but limited, will be painful. And if we are willing to let the pain prune us, to give us a deeper sense of our belovedness, then we can be as free as Jesus and walk on this world and proclaim God’s first love, wherever we go.2.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

144. “When we keep claiming the light, we will find ourselves becoming more and more radiant.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

145. “Here is the God I want to believe in: a Father who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting; never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

146. “The real enemies of our life are the ‘oughts’ and the ‘ifs.’ They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and now.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

147. “Who can take away suffering without entering it?”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

148. “Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

149. “Mourning our losses is the first step away from resentment and toward gratitude. The tears of our grief can soften our hardened hearts and open us to the possibility to say “thanks.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

150. “Most Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen