What makes us human is not our mind but our heart, not our ability to think but our ability to love.
HENRI NOUWENWe 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.
More Henri Nouwen Quotes
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If I were to let my life be taken over by what is urgent, I might very well never get around to what is essential.
HENRI NOUWEN -
Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
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Your life is not going to be easy, and it should not be easy. It ought to be hard. It ought to be radical; it ought to be restless; it ought to lead you to places you’d rather not go.
HENRI NOUWEN -
We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.
HENRI NOUWEN -
Our life is a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.
HENRI NOUWEN -
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
HENRI NOUWEN -
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
HENRI NOUWEN -
You have to listen to the one who calls you beloved. That has to be affirmed over and over again. That is prayer – listening to the voice of the one who calls you “the beloved.”
HENRI NOUWEN -
The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.
HENRI NOUWEN -
This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love, and give love.
HENRI NOUWEN -
The only feelings that do not heal are the ones you hide.
HENRI NOUWEN -
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.
HENRI NOUWEN -
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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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 -
Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.
HENRI NOUWEN