Best quotes by Henri Nouwen on Life

Checkout quotes by Henri Nouwen on Life

• ‟ Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ Discipline means to prevent everything in your life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere you're not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that you hadn't planned or counted on.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ Perhaps nothing helps us make the movement from our little selves to a larger world than remembering God in gratitude. Such a perspective puts God in view in all of life, not just in the moments we set aside for worship or spiritual disciplines. Not just in the moments when life seems easy.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ The real enemies of our life are the 'oughts' and the 'ifs.' They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and now.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ A life without a lonely place, that is, without a quiet center, becomes destructive.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ The spiritual life is not a life before, after, or beyond our everyday existence. No, the spiritual life can only be real when it is lived in the midst of the pains and joys of the here and now.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ As peacemakers, we must resist all the powers of war and destruction and proclaim that peace is the divine gift offered to all who affirm life. Resistance means saying 'No' to all the forces of death, wherever they may be.

  - Henri Nouwen
  

• ‟ 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 Nouwen
  

• ‟ Living in a community with very wounded people, I came to see that I had lived most of my life as a tightrope artist trying to walk on a high, thin cable from one tower to the other, always waiting for the applause when I had not fallen off and broken my leg.

  - Henri Nouwen