Top Henri Nouwen Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Henri Nouwen Biography

Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen, (January 24, 1932 – September 21, 1996) was a Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer and theologian. His interests were rooted primarily in psychology, pastoral ministry, spirituality, social justice and community. Over the course of his life, Nouwen was heavily influenced by the work of Anton Boisen, Thomas Merton, Rembrandt, Vincent van Gogh and Jean Vanier.

Read about Henri Nouwen in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Henri Nouwen Quotes

We are called to be fruitful - not successful, not productive, not accomplished. Success comes from strength, stress, and human effort. Fruitfulness comes from vulnerability and the admission of our own weakness.

Effort, Fruitful, Fruitfulness, Stress, Successful

Too many of us are lonely ministers practicing a lonely ministry.

Lonely, Ministers, Ministry, Practicing

A waiting person is a patient person. The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.

Patience, Mean, Patient Person, Situation, Word

What is important is how well we love. God will make our love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not.

Fruitful, God, God Love, Important, Love, Our Love

Our first responsibility in the midst of violence is to prevent it from destroying us.

Responsibility, Violence, Firsts, Destroying, Prevent

When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair. You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don't say to yourself "All is lost. I have to start all over again. " This is not true. What you have gained you have gained. . . . When you return to the the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you started.

Despair, Expect, Regression, Return, Road, Say

Life is precious. Not because it is unchangeable, like a diamond, but because it is vulnerable, like a little bird. To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance, and support. Life and death are connected by vulnerability. The newborn child and the dying elder both remind us of the preciousness of our lives. Let's not forget the preciousness and vulnerability of life during the times we are powerful, successful, and popular.

Attention, Children, Forget, Like, Mean, Powerful

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.

Evaluations, Filled, Judging People, Long, Remain, Thinking

I still believe that the university is a place where people can develop their minds and learn skills, but also they can develop their personalities and their spiritual life.

Believe, Place, Skills, Spiritual, University

a spiritual life without prayer is like the gospel without Christ.

Christ, Gospel, Like, Prayer, Spiritual

In God's eyes the most significant is often the most hidden.

Eye, Eyes, Hidden, Significant

Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let's not be afraid to receive each day's surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.

Friends, Heart, Humanity, Joy, Open, See

When we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.

Christian, Convinced, Forgiving, Gentle, Inspiration, Life

Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in us.

Among, Christian, Community, Flames, Seriously

To listen is very hard, because it asks of us so much interior stability that we no longer need to prove ourselves by speeches, arguments, statements or declarations. True listeners no longer have an inner need to make their presence known. They are free to receive, welcome, to accept.

Accept, Listening, Needs, Speech, Speeches, Statements

In community, where you have all the affection you could ever dream of, you feel that there is a place where even community cannot reach. That's a very important experience. In that loneliness, which is like a dark night of the soul, you learn that God is greater than community.

Affection, Dark, Dream, Loneliness, Place

Gratitude goes beyond the 'mine' and 'thine' and claims the truth that all of life is a pure gift. In the past I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.

Pure, Spiritual, Thankful, Thanksgiving, Thought, Truth

The crisis of our prayer life is that our minds may be filled with ideas of God while our hearts remain far from him.

Heart, Ideas, Prayer, Remain

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.

Criticizing, Giving, People, Teacher, Vision

I want my work to create space where people can meet God, rather than give them something they can "apply" to their daily life.

Give, Giving, Life, People, Space

1

...