Henri Nouwen Quotes

I realise how precious life is, probably because I've seen how it can be taken away.

Again, somehow, one saw life, a pure bead. I lifted the pencil again, useless though I knew it to be. But even as I did so, the unmistakable tokens of death showed themselves. The body relaxed, and instantly grew stiff. The struggle was over. The insignificant little creature now knew death. As I looked at the dead moth, this minute wayside triumph of so great a force over so mean an antagonist filled me with wonder. Just as life had been strange a few minutes before, so death was now as strange.

Life is anything that dies when you stomp on it.

Mortality defines the human condition.

I now know that things I always thought I could depend on can crash in an instant. Because of the love that I have been shown, I now know what it means to be 'beloved.' I now know that no breath is to be taken for granted.

You may think life is sweet now, but when death is a heartbeat away then life becomes unbearably desirable. And when you survive, everything you do will be enhanced and filled with greater joy: the sunlight, the breeze, a good wine, a woman's lips, a child's laughter.

Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling.

One should not believe too strongly in a life which can easily vanish.

This is the danger of loving: No matter how powerful you are, no matter how many kingdoms you rule, you cannot stop those you love from dying.

You realize that life is short and fragile; and when you are facing walls of water, you understand your own mortality can change and how quickly things could change.

Throughout this life, you can never be certain of living long enough to take another breath.

A simple child. That lightly draws its breath. And feels its life in every limb. What should it know of death?

I should not have loved my daughter as I did. Not in this world in which nothing lives for long. You children are flies. You are roses. You multiply and die.

I mean, after all, you have to consider we're only made out of dust. That's admittedly not much to go on and we shouldn't forget that. But even considering, I mean it's sort of a bad beginning, we're not doing too bad. So I personally have faith that even in this lousy situation we're faced with we can make it. You get me?

Slowly, very slowly, he sat up, and as he did so he felt more alive, and more aware of his own living body than ever before. Why had he never appreciated what a miracle he was, brain and nerve and bounding heart? It would all be gone...or at least, he would be gone from it. His breath came slow and deep, and his mouth and throat were completely dry, but so were his eyes.

We like to think of life as a constant ... Yet it can be ended in a heartbeat.

... life is a flickering candle we all carry around. A gust of wind, a meaningless accident, a microsecond of carelessness, and it's out. Forever.

When I sleepwalk into your room, and pick you up, and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me hard, as if clinging could save us. I think you think I will never die, I think I exude to you the permanence of smoke or stars, even as my broken arms heal themselves around you.

Certainly people have a lot tougher situations than I've had to deal with. But I will say we are all dying from the moment we are born. This is not just rehearsal.

When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.

Life is an incurable disease.

Death is inevitable, but Life - that's the tricky bit where things happen.

Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

Nothing is a matter of life and death except life and death.

Death is an absolute mystery. We are all vulnerable to it, it's what makes life interesting and suspenseful.