Henri Nouwen Quotes

Community is first of all a quality of the heart. It grows from the spiritual knowledge that we are alive not for ourselves but for one another.

Accustomed long to contemplating love and compassion I have forgotten all difference between myself and others

I have vanity and greed enough for one person. But at the same time, I feel in my bones you lose a lot of life's value if you don't see yourself as a member of the family of man.

All of us are much more human than otherwise.

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

Are we truly being our sisters' keepers? Initially, that dog-eat-dog mentality within us may bark and say that we aren't responsible for other people, but if that was truly the case, then why are we even here? We have so much to offer and give to this world.

The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word 'love'. It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.

I believe in the power of one and that we are all bound by the thread of oneness and humanity.

Anything you do to and for another person, you do it to and for yourself

Love and Compassion are the true religions to me. But to develop this, we do not need to believe in any religion.

When we hug, our hearts connect and we know that we are not separate beings. Hugging with mindfulness and concentration can bring reconciliation, healing, understanding, and much happiness.

Compassion is our deepest nature. It arises from our interconnection with all things.

I call him religious who understands the suffering of others.

To love is to take delight in happiness of another, or, what amounts to the same thing, it is to account another's happiness as one's own.

Love thy neighbor as thyself because you are your neighbor. It is illusion that makes you think that your neighbor is someone other than yourself.

The rationale for loving others is the recognition of the simple fact that every living being has the same right to and the same desire for happiness, and not suffering, and the consideration that you as one individual are one life unit as compared with the mulititude of others in their ceaseless quest for happiness.

In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense. What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness.

Eventually, I think you find a spiritual and emotional connection with someone, and I think it unifies you with everyone else. I think if you love one person, it makes you love everyone.

Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills.

Through your love for each other, through learning the art of making one person happy, you learn to express your love for the whole of humanity and all beings. Please help us develop the curriculum for the Institute for the Happiness of One Person. Don't wait until we open the school. You can begin practicing right away.

If we can cultivate a concern for others, keeping in mind the oneness of humanity, we can build a more compassionate world.

True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.

I am because we are. We all bleed the same color. We all want to love and be loved.

We become compassionate not from altruism which denies the self for the sake of the other, but from the insight that sees and feels one is the other.