579 Quotes by Henri J.M. Nouwen

Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth.

I am beginning to experience that an unconditional, total love of God makes a very articulate, alert, and attentive love for the neighbor possible.

The great movement of the spiritual life is from a deaf, nonhearing life to a life of listening.

Our first responsibility in the midst of violence is to prevent it from destroying us.

To be bored, therefore, does not mean that we have nothing to do, but that we question the value of the things we are so busy doing. The great paradox of our time is that many of us are busy and bored at the same time.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

Acknowledge your anguish, but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.

The first task of seeking guidance then is to touch your own struggles, doubts, and insecurities – in short, to affirm your life as a quest.8 Your life, my life, is given graciously by God. Our lives are not problems to be solved but journeys to be taken with Jesus as our friend and finest guide.

God is the father who watches and waits for his children, runs out to meet them, embraces them, pleads with them, begs and urges them to come home.