Top 500 Henri J.M. Nouwen Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “Following Jesus means to let go of the “I” and move toward the “other.” Following Jesus means to dare to move out of ourselves and to slowly let go of building our “self” up.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

302. “Community as discipline is the effort to create a free and empty space among people where together we can practice true obedience.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

303. “Jesus’ first temptation was to be relevant: to turn stones into bread.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

304. “Remember, you are held safe. You are loved. You are protected. You are in communion with God and with those whom God has sent you. What is of God will last. It belongs to the eternal life. Choose it, and it will be yours.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

305. “The real mystery of marriage is not that husband and wife love each other so much that they can recognize God in each other’s lives, but more because God loves them so much that they can discover each other more and more as living reminder’s of God’s presence.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

306. “Our lives are unique stones in the mosaic of human existence – priceless and irreplaceable.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

307. “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 J.M. Nouwen

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308. “In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

309. “The world is waiting for new saints, ecstatic men and women who are so deeply rooted in the love of God that they are free to imagine a new international order.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

310. “As long as we relate to the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the fields and the oceans as properties which we can manipulate according to our real or fabricated needs, nature remains opaque, and does not reveal to us its true being.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Featured in: Real Quotes

311. “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 J.M. Nouwen

312. “The world says, “When you were young you were dependent and could not go where you wanted, but when you grow old you will be able to make your own decisions, go your own way, and control your own destiny.” But Jesus has a different vision of maturity: It is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

313. “The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there. Our lives are filled with examples which tell us that leadership asks for understanding and that understanding requires sharing.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

314. “The difference between rich and poor is not that the rich sin is more than the poor, that the rich find it easier to call sin a virtue.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

315. “Life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

316. “Who can listen to a story of loneliness and despair without taking the risk of experiencing similar pains in his own heart and even losing his precious peace of mind? In short: “Who can take away suffering without entering it?”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

317. “Exhaustion, burnout, and depression are not signs that you are doing God’s will. God is gentle and loving. God desires to give you a deep sense of safety in God’s love. Once you have allowed yourself to experience that love fully, you will be better able to discern who you are being sent to in God’s name.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

318. “The joy that compassion brings is one of the best-kept secrets of humanity. It is a secret known only to a very few people, a secret that has to be rediscovered over and over again.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

319. “I witness many signs of hope. I don’t have to wait until all is well, but I can celebrate every little hint of the Kingdom that is at hand.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

320. “Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, “This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal.””

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

321. “Just as words lose their power when they are not born out of silence, so openness loses its meaning when there is no ability to be closed.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

322. “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

323. “Our society is so fragmented, our family lives so sundered by physical and emotional distance, our friendships so sporadic, our intimacies so ‘in-between’ things and often so utilitarian, that there are few places where we can feel truly safe.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

324. “Your true identity is as a child of God. This is the identity you have to accept. Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain. You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you as an opportunity for strengthening your basic identity, because the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame. You belong to God, and it is as a child of God that you are sent into the world.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

326. “Every time you close another door – be it the door of immediate satisfaction, the door of distracting entertainment, the door of busyness, the door of guilt and worry, or the door of self-rejection – you commit yourself to go deeper into your heart and thus deeper into the heart of God.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

327. “To live in the present, we must deeply believe that what is most important is in the here and now.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

328. “People with handicaps teach me that being is more important than doing, the heart is more important than the mind, and caring together is better than caring alone.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

329. “When you can look into the face of another human being and you have enough light in you to recognize your brother or you sister. Until then it is night, and darkness is still with us.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

330. “To console does not mean to take away the pain but rather to be there and say, “You are not alone, I am with you. Together.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

331. “When we are spiritually deaf, we are not aware that anything important is happening in our lives. We keep running away from the present moment, and we try to create experiences that make our lives worthwhile. So we fill up our time to avoid the emptiness we otherwise would feel.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

332. “Our salvation comes from something small, tender, and vulnerable, something hardly noticeable. The Lord, who is the creator of the universe, comes to us in smallness, weakness, and hiddenness.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

333. “Without trust, I cannot let myself be found. Trust is that deep inner conviction that the Father wants me home. As long as I doubt that I am worth finding and put myself down as less loved than my younger brothers and sisters, I cannot be found. I have to keep saying to myself, “God is looking for you. He will go anywhere to find you. He loves you, he wants you home, he cannot rest unless he has you with him.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

334. “It is freeing to become aware that we do not have to be victims of our past and can learn new ways of responding. Forgiveness is love practiced among people who love poorly. It sets us free without wanting anything in return.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

336. “The elder brother compares himself with the younger one and becomes jealous. But the father loves them both so much that it didn’t even occur to him to delay the party in order to prevent the elder son from feeling rejected. I am convinced that many of my emotional problems would melt as snow in the sun if I could let the truth of God’s motherly non-comparing love permeate my heart.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

337. “Your way of being present to your community may require times of absence, prayer, writing, or solitude. These too are times for your community.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

338. “The great teachers are always those who can live the tension. They are not criticizing everybody, they’re not complaining. They give young people a vision.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

339. “The main question is “Do you own your pain?” As long as you do not own your pain – that is, integrate your pain into your way of being in the world – the danger exists that you will use the other to seek healing for yourself. When you speak to others about your pain without fully owning it, you expect something from them that they cannot give. As a result, you will feel frustrated, and those you wanted to help will feel confused, disappointed, or even further burdened.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

340. “The Bible is primarily a book not of information but of formation, not merely a book to be analyzed, scrutinized, and discussed but a sacred book to nurture us, to unify our hearts and minds, and to serve as a constant source of contemplation.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

341. “Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

342. “The tragedy of our lives is that, while we suffer from the wounds afflicted on us by those who love us, we cannot avoid wounding those we want to love.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

343. “The fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don’t see the results.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

344. “What once seemed such a curse has become a blessing. All the agony that threatened to destroy my life now seems like the fertile ground for greater trust, stronger hope, and deeper love.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

345. “Becoming a child is living toward a second innocence: not the innocence of the newborn infant, but the innocence that is reached through conscious choices.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

346. “Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

347. “I have also learned to catch the darkness early, not to allow sadness to grow into depression or let a sense of being rejected develop into a feeling of abandonment. Even in the renewed and deepened friendship, I feel the freedom to point to the little clouds and ask for help in letting them pass by.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

348. “Life in the Spirit of Jesus is therefore a life in which Jesus’ coming into the world – his incarnation, his death, and resurrection – is lived out by those who have entered into the same obedient relationship to the Father which marked Jesus’ own life. Having become sons and daughters as Jesus was Son, our lives become a continuation of Jesus’ mission.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

349. “Yes, there is that voice, the voice that speaks from above and from within and that whispers softly or declares loudly: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.” It certainly is not easy to hear that voice in a world filled with voices that shout: You are no good, you are ugly; you are worthless; you are despicable, you are nobody – unless you can demonstrate the opposite.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

350. “God is the hub of the wheel of life. The closer we come to God the closer we come to each other. The basis of community is not primarily our ideas, feelings, and emotions about each other but our common search for God. When we keep our minds and hearts directed toward God, we will come more fully “together.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen