Top 500 Henri J.M. Nouwen Quotes (2026 Update)
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351. “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

352. “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

353. “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

354. “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

355. “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

356. “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

357. “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

358. “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

359. “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

360. “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

361. “Thus the authority of compassion is the possibility of man to forgive his brother, because forgiveness is only real for him who has discovered the.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

362. “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

363. “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

364. “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

365. “You can only seek God when you have already found God. The desire for God’s unconditional love is the fruit of having been touched by that love.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

366. “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

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

368. “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

369. “The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

370. “The more we touch the intimate love of God which creates, sustains, and guides us, the more we recognize the multitude of fruits that come forth from that love.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

371. “The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation...”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

372. “Emit gratitude as though it was done.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

373. “Life is a gift to be grateful for and not a property to cling to.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

374. “I have found over and over again how hard it is to be truly faithful to Jesus when I am alone.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

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

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

376. “As long as we have our stories there is hope.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

377. “To care for others requires an ever-increasing acceptance.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

378. “In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

379. “To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer. It is more than a word of praise or appreciation; it is more than pointing out someone’s talents or good deeds; it is more than putting someone in the light. To give a blessing is to affirm, to say ‘yes’ to a person’s Belovedness.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

380. “The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

381. “The man who can articulate the movements of his inner life need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

382. “Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people’s response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule. You have to close yourself to the outside world so you can enter your own heart and the heart of God through your pain. God will send to you the people with whom you can share your anguish, who can lead you closer to the true source of love.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

383. “A friend is more than a therapist or confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God’s forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, “Isn’t that beautiful,” or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don’t have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

384. “The world is evil only when you become its slave. The world has a lot to offer – just as Egypt did for the children of Jacob – as long as you don’t feel bound to obey it. The great struggle facing you is not to leave the world, to reject your ambitions and aspirations, or to despise money, prestige, or success, but to claim your spiritual truth and to live in the world as someone who doesn’t belong to it.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

385. “Spiritual greatness has nothing to do with being greater than others. It has everything to do with being as great as each of us can be. True sanctity is precisely drinking our own cup and trusting that by thus fully claiming our own, irreplaceable journey, we can become a source of hope for many.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

386. “What is forgotten cannot be healed, and that which cannot be healed easily becomes the cause of greater evil.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

387. “People who have come to know the joy of God do not deny the darkness, but they choose not to live in it.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

388. “Although I am a committed Catholic priest, and nowhere hide that fact, my focus is very much a spiritual journey.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

389. “When love chooses, it chooses with a perfect sensitivity for the unique beauty of the chosen one, and it chooses without making anyone else feel excluded.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

390. “The mystery of one man is too immense and too profound to be explained by another man.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

391. “Today worrying means to be occupied and preoccupied with many things, while at the same time being bored, resentful, depressed, and very lonely.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

392. “When we live with a solitude of heart, we can listen with attention to the words and the worlds of others, but when we are driven by loneliness, we tend to select just those remarks and events that bring immediate satisfaction to our own craving needs. Our.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

393. “What I do know with unwavering certainty is the heart of the father. It is a heart of limitless mercy.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

394. “Active waiting is essential to the spiritual life.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

395. “The first task of seeking guidance then is to touch your own struggles, doubts, and insecurities – in short, to affirm your life as a quest.8 Your life, my life, is given graciously by God. Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

396. “Grateful people learn to celebrate even amid life’s hard and harrowing memories because they know that pruning is no mere punishment, but preparation.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

397. “Too many of us are lonely ministers practicing a lonely ministry.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

398. “When we have nothing to cling to as our own and cease thinking of ourselves as people who must defend privileges, we can open ourselves freely to others with the faithful expectation that our strength will manifest itself in our shared weakness.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

399. “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. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God’s Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

400. “Ministry is a very confronting service. It does not allow people to live with illusions of immortality and wholeness. It keeps reminding others that they are mortal and broken, but also that with the recognition of this condition, liberation starts.”

— Henri J.M. Nouwen