Top 500 Henri J.M. Nouwen Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved, you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched wet ground, you want to dig deeper.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

102. “Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

103. “Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

104. “As we read spiritually about spiritual things, we open our hearts to God’s voice. Sometimes we must be willing to put down the book we are reading and just listen to what God is saying to us through our words.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

105. “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

106. “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 J.M. Nouwen

107. “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

108. “Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say to God: ‘I love you, too.’”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

111. “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

112. “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

Featured in: Real Quotes

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

114. “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

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Featured in: Real Quotes

116. “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

Featured in: Real Quotes

117. “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

118. “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

119. “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

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

121. “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

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

123. “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

124. “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

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

126. “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

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

128. “Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God’s incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

131. “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

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

133. “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

134. “The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

135. “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

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

137. “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

138. “By inviting God into our difficulties we ground life – even its sad moments – in joy and hope. When we stop grasping our lives we can finally be given more than we could ever grab for ourselves. And we learn the way to a deeper love for others.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

140. “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

141. “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

142. “Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved’. Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

144. “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

145. “We are not what we do, we are not what we have, we are not what others think of us. Coming home is claiming the truth. I am the beloved child of a loving creator.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

146. “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

147. “Forgiveness changes the way we remember.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

148. “God wants to bring joy not pain, peace not war, healing not suffering. Therefore, instead of declaring anything and everything to be the will of God, we must be willing to ask ourselves where in the midst of our pains and sufferings we can discern the loving presence of God.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

149. “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

150. “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