Top 280 Henry Cloud Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “But until then, you might find yourself laboring much longer than you should, still trying to get someone to change, thinking that one more coaching session will do the trick – or one more bit of encouragement, or one more session of feedback or confrontation. Or worse, one more concession.”

— Henry Cloud

152. “Many times to set boundaries with someone is to risk losing the love that you have craved for a long time. To start to say no to a controlling parent is to get in touch with the sadness of what you do not have with them instead of still working hard to get it. This working hard keeps you away from the grief and keeps you stuck. But accepting the reality of who they are and letting go of the wish for them to be different is the essence of grief. And that is sad indeed.”

— Henry Cloud

153. “There’s no better way to become a disintegrated character than to be your own authority.”

— Henry Cloud

154. “Denial of one’s need for others is the most common type of defense against bonding. If people come from a situation, whether growing up or later in life, where good, safe relationships were not available to them, they learn to deny that they even want them. Why want what you can’t have? They slowly get rid of their awareness of the need.”

— Henry Cloud

155. “Deep down inside, we all realize the difference between our ideal self, the imagined perfection, and our real self, the one that truly is. If these two battle each other, we will be in constant conflict. What we wish were true and what really is true will war with one another.”

— Henry Cloud

156. “If what you dig up is painful or ugly, throw it away. That means to process it, mourn it, heal it, grieve it, repent of it, or whatever it takes to work it out of your system. You are growing a garden in your heart; some things you wish to increase, and others you need to weed out. Either way requires caretaking. That is your job as guardian of your heart.”

— Henry Cloud

157. “Couples often live out years of falsehood trying to protect and save a relationship, all the while destroying any chance of real relationship.”

— Henry Cloud

158. “Unsafe people will never identify with others as fellow sinners and strugglers, because they see themselves as somehow “above all of that.”

— Henry Cloud

159. “Change is frightening. It may comfort you to know, that if you are afraid, you are possibly on the right road – the road to change and growth. One businessman I know says that if he is not totally frightened at some point in every day, he is not stretching himself far enough. He is very successful at what he does.”

— Henry Cloud

160. “Encourage your child to think for himself, disagree, and talk about his feelings while accepting your authority.”

— Henry Cloud

161. “God’s solution for “I can’t live that way anymore” is basically, “Good! Don’t live that way anymore. Set firm limits against evil behavior that are designed to promote change and redemption. Get the love and support you need from other places to take the kind of stance that I do to help redeem relationship. Suffer long, but suffer in the right way.” And when done God’s way, chances are much better for redemption.”

— Henry Cloud

162. “Workers who continually take on duties that aren’t theirs will eventually burn out. It takes wisdom to know what we should be doing and what we shouldn’t. We can’t do everything.”

— Henry Cloud

163. “Mature, healthy people need other people; they don’t isolate themselves... Needing love isn’t being immature. Rather, it gives us the energy we need to go out and slay our dragons.”

— Henry Cloud

164. “Other children communicate with actions, such as tantrums, yelling, name-calling, and running away. The trick is to disallow this form of expression and encourage verbal communication. “I want to know what you are feeling, but I want to hear you tell me instead of show me.”

— Henry Cloud

165. “If you are uneasy about a relationship, ask yourself, Does this relationship breed more togetherness or more isolation within me? If you feel alone in the relationship, that’s not a good sign. But remem-ber: the first person to look at is yourself.”

— Henry Cloud

166. “Who a person is will ultimately determine if their brains, talents, competencies, energy, effort, deal-making abilities, and opportunities will succeed.”

— Henry Cloud

167. “You can’t master people, but you can become a master at choosing and dealing with people.”

— Henry Cloud

168. “People tend to look at dating sort of like a safari – like they’re trying to land the trophy.”

— Henry Cloud

169. “He didn’t have the ability to empathize with her because he could not get past himself.”

— Henry Cloud

170. “Dating is a place to practice how to relate to other people.”

— Henry Cloud

171. “Don’t get mad. Set a limit!”

— Henry Cloud

172. “Independence is not an option for us. Remember, God existed without us.”

— Henry Cloud

173. “For love to work, each spouse has to realize his or her freedom. And boundaries help define the freedom we have and the freedom we do not have. Marriage is not slavery. It is based on a love relationship deeply rooted in freedom. Each partner is free from the other and therefore free to love the other. Where there is control, or perception of control, there is not love. Love only exists where there is freedom.”

— Henry Cloud

174. “Controllers can’t respect others’ limits. They resist taking responsibility for their own lives, so they need to control others.”

— Henry Cloud

175. “In many contexts, until we let go of what is not good, we will never find something that is good. The lesson: good cannot begin until bad ends.”

— Henry Cloud

176. “Each spouse must take responsibility for the following things: Feelings Attitudes Behaviors Choices Limits Desires Thoughts Values Talents Love.”

— Henry Cloud

177. “Parents get into trouble when they don’t empathize with their child’s pain. They either overidentify with the pain of the child and give in, or they get angry at the child’s pain and go to war. Empathy and keeping the limit is the answer for both extremes.”

— Henry Cloud

178. “Safe people, for example, admit their weaknesses. They are humble. And they prove their trustworthiness over time.”

— Henry Cloud

179. “Hate is part of the immune system of your soul.”

— Henry Cloud

180. “Things can hurt and not harm us. In fact they can even be good for us. And things that feel good can be very harmful to us.” You need to evaluate the effects of setting boundaries and be responsible to the other person, but that does not mean you should avoid setting boundaries because someone responds with hurt or anger. To have boundaries – in this instance, Jason’s saying no to his partner – is to live a purposeful life.”

— Henry Cloud

181. “Frustration is a key ingredient to growth. The child who is never frustrated never develops frustration tolerance.”

— Henry Cloud

182. “When we put our faith and trust in God, we’ve done the one thing that a human can do to accomplish superhuman things. We have reached past human strength and knowledge. We’ve touched infinite strength and infinite knowledge.”

— Henry Cloud

183. “The law of sowing and reaping is the most trustworthy law of behavior.”

— Henry Cloud

184. “A second chance is not a repeat of the first chance. A second chance is a moving forward to something new.”

— Henry Cloud

185. “Repentant people will recognize a wrong and really want to change because they do not want to be that kind of person. They are motivated by love to not hurt anyone like that again. These are trustworthy people because they are on the road to holiness and change, and their behavior matters to them. People.”

— Henry Cloud

186. “Envy says, “What is inside me is bad. What is outside me is good. I hate anyone who has something I desire.”

— Henry Cloud

187. “Sometimes there is bleeding when you cut out a cancer.”

— Henry Cloud

188. “As iron sharpens iron, we need confrontation and truth from others to grow. No one likes to hear negative things about him or herself. But in the long run it may be good for us. The Bible says that if we are wise, we will learn from it. Admonition from a friend, while it can hurt, can also help.”

— Henry Cloud

189. “Your feelings are your responsability.”

— Henry Cloud

190. “In short, boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out. They guard our treasures...”

— Henry Cloud

191. “People often think the Devil tries to influence people to do “bad things.” While this is true, the demonic strategy is also much deeper. He tries to tempt us to get our needs met without relationship and without humility, the way he wanted to in the beginning.”

— Henry Cloud

192. “If you are caught up in passionate lust or with someone who is, then chances are that these issues are not being worked out. The lust is keeping you from integrating your soul. Just like a drug addict is not growing when he or she is using drugs, your soul is not growing if you are acting out lust.”

— Henry Cloud

193. “However, if I do not “own” my life, my choices and options become very limited. Think how confusing it would be if someone told you to “guard this property diligently, because I will hold you responsible for what happens here,” and then did not tell you the boundaries of the property. Or they did not give you the means with which to protect the property. This would be not only confusing but also potentially dangerous.”

— Henry Cloud

194. “The idea of submission is never meant to allow someone to overstep another’s boundaries. Submission only has meaning in the context of boundaries, for boundaries promote self-control and freedom. If a wife is not free and in control of herself, she is not submitting anyway. She is a slave subject to a slave driver, and she is out of the will of God.”

— Henry Cloud

195. “There is no simple theological answer to pain; the answer is a relationship with God in the midst of pain. Those who need things in neat little black-and-white packages cannot tolerate such a faith.”

— Henry Cloud

196. “After all, the ultimate goal of learning boundaries is to free us up to protect, nurture, and develop the lives God has given us stewardship over. Setting boundaries is mature, proactive, initiative-taking. It’s being in control of our lives. Individuals with mature boundaries aren’t frantic, in a hurry, or out of control. They have a direction in their lives, a steady moving toward their personal goals. They plan ahead. The.”

— Henry Cloud

197. “Many people wish for a different universe than the one in which we live. They want one where every day is harvest time and there are no long laborious summer months to go through in order to get there. And when the harvest is ripe and they are thriving, they want no approaching winters where they see that the harvest is over and a cold death is looming.”

— Henry Cloud

198. “I’m not an expert in the sociological realities of all the pastors in the world, but I would say that there are some very, very positive things about the state of integrity in church leaders.”

— Henry Cloud

199. “When truth presents itself, the wise person sees the light, takes it in, and makes adjustments.”

— Henry Cloud

200. “People who own their lives do not feel guilty when they make choices about where they are going. They take other people into consideration, but when they make choices for the wishes of others, they are choosing out of love, not guilt; to advance a good, not to avoid a bad.”

— Henry Cloud