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Henri Nouwen Quotes about Life

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When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Henri Nouwen
Life, Motivational, Friendship
"Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life". Book by Henri Nouwen, 1974.

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

Henri Nouwen
Life, Peace, Freedom

A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identifiction, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.

Henri Nouwen
Life, Lonely, Distance

The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it

Henri Nouwen
Life, Spiritual, Doe
Henri J. M. Nouwen (2016). “The Spiritual Life: Eight Essential Titles by Henri Nouwen”, HarperCollins

Life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared.

Henri Nouwen
Life, Life Is, Possession
Henri J. M. Nouwen (2005). “The Dance of Life: Weaving Sorrows and Blessings Into One Joyful Step”

To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude.

Henri Nouwen
Life, Spiritual, Loneliness
Henri Nouwen (2013). “Reaching Out”, p.34, Image

Prayer is the breath of your life which gives you the freedom to go and stay where you wish and to find the many signs which point out the way to a new land.

Henri Nouwen
Life, Prayer, Land

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