Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that, while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
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. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it - Henri J.M. Nouwen
[Praying] demands that you take to the road again and again, leaving your house and looking forward to a new land for yourself and your [fellow human]. This is why praying demands poverty, that is, the readiness to live a life in which you have nothing to lose so that you always begin afresh. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
First, silence makes us pilgrims. Secondly, silence guards the fire within. Thirdly, silence teaches us to speak. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led into places where we would rather not go. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
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. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
People who read your ideas tend to think that your writings reflect your life. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
We are not what we do, we are not what we have, we are not what others think of us. Coming home is claiming the truth. I am the beloved child of a loving creator. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
Theological formation is the gradual and often painful discovery of God's incomprehensibility. You can be competent in many things, but you cannot be competent in God. - Henri J.M. Nouwen
Solitude is the furnace in which transformation takes place. - Henri J.M. Nouwen