Henri Nouwen Quotes

I shine in tears like the sun in April.

I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile.

I think it's good for people to see the positive beauty that can flower from the deepest grieving.

One day you're waiting for the sky to fall, The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all.

The thorn is a bridge spanning the muddy depths of agony and sorrow so that one may on the other side dance to the drums of the rose of joy.

The lotus comes from the murkiest water but grows into the purest thing.

We all find joy and radiance and a reason to move on even in the most dire of circumstances. Even in chaos and madness, there's still a beauty that comes from just the vibrancy of another human spirit.

I have been drawn to stories that are attempting to turn suffering into beauty.

You take the negative, the bitter, the pain, the suffering, the depression, and all of those are ingredients for something far more purposeful than you can imagine.

From out of pain, beauty.

I think there can always be beauty in struggle.

But where pain was, healing could come; where loneliness was, new relationships could be formed; where rejection was, new love could be found. It was a moment. And moments changed. She would have to live through the moment to get to the next.

Stars burn clear all night till dawn. Do that yourself, and a spring will rise in the dark with water your deepest thirst is for.

When I think of the happiness that is in store for me, every sorrow, every pain becomes dear to me.

You can grow flowers from where dirt use to be.

Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.

Perhaps some day I'll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow.

Affliction comes to us all ...not to impoverish, but to enrich us, as the plough enriches the field; to multiply our joy, as the seed, by planting, is multiplied a thousand-fold.

Because the road is rough and long, Should we despise the skylark's song?

Joy came always after pain.

Today's teardrops are tomorrow's rainbows.

The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower.

We are all the walking wounded in a world that is a war zone. Everything we love will be taken from us, everything, last of all life itself. Yet everywhere I look, I find great beauty in this battlefield, and grace and the promise of joy.

Even when muddy your wings sparkle bright wonders that heal broken worlds.