"Who can take away suffering without entering it?"
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Quote collection
Henri Nouwen quotes (page 11 of 25)
497 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Learning to weep, learning to keep vigil, learning to wait for the dawn. Perhaps this is what it means to be human."
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"Once you are in communion with God, you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear other people in whom God has also found a dwelling place."
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"What is important is how well we love. God will make our love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not."
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"Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing-sicknes s, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death--can take that love away."
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"Friendship and love are impossible without a mutual vulnerability."
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"Prayer and action...can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation."
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"when the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian."
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"Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action."
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"Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about."
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"Yes, it's a competitive world, but where is your heart?"
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"There is nothing so important in the family as the sacred quality of the meal."
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"The beatitudes say, "Blessed are the poor". They don't say, "Blessed are those who care for the poor.""
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"Where is peace to be found? The answer is surprising but clear. In weakness. Why there? Because in our weakness, our familiar ways of controlling and manipulating our world are being stripped away, and we are forced to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are most vulnerable, the peace that is not of this world is mysteriously hidden."
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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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"I kept running around it in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved". Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence."
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"Forgiveness means that I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God — for not fulfilling all my needs. I, too, must ask forgiveness for not being able to fulfill other people's needs. … The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God, then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God."
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"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."
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"Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people's response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule."
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"One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal."
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