579 Quotes by Henri J.M. Nouwen

The people who most affected me were the ones who got right in there with me, who cried with me, but who also had a certain authority, who dared to say what needed saying.

Good families always ritualize the table. You can say, “This is a Christmas meal; this is a birthday meal.”

Trust in God allows us to live with active expectation, not cynicism.

By prayer, community is created as well as expressed.

The joy at the dramatic return of the younger son in no way means that the elder son was less loved, less appreciated, less favored. The father does not compare the two sons. He loves them both with a complete love and expresses that love according to their individual journeys.

Jesus’ whole life and mission involve accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God’s love.

Every time you reject yourself, you idealize others.

Hope means to keep living amid desperation and to keep humming in the darkness.

I am learning that the best cure for hypocrisy is community. Hypocrisy is not so much the result of not living what I preach but much more of not confessing my inability to fully live up to my own words.