We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil.
HENRI NOUWENThe fruits of your labors may be reaped two generations from now. Trust, even when you don’t see the results.
More Henri Nouwen Quotes
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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.
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The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.
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I often wonder if my knowledge about God has not become my greatest stumbling block to my knowledge of God.
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My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
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I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.
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Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.
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Those who keep speaking about the sun while walking under a cloudy sky are messengers of hope, the true saints of our day.
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If you feel loved, you can do a thousand things. If you feel rejected, everything becomes a problem.
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What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
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Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others.
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It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.
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Your heart is greater than your wounds.
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Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.
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We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help.
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For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.
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Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.
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Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.
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Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.
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The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.
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Prayer is not what is done by us, but rather what is done by the Holy Spirit in us.
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Every time there are losses, there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper.
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Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert, and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.
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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.
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Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life.
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I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
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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.
HENRI NOUWEN