Henri Nouwen Quotes

No one should ever say that it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small according to God's good pleasure; but let this be your conclusion and let it so be thought, that - as is the perfect truth - it was the gift of God.

I ought to pray as much as God's on my mind, because then I'd pray a lot. All I can tell you is God is real, and so that infuses everything.

Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.

If you wish to strengthen your confidence in God still more, often recall the loving way in which He has acted toward you, and how mercifully He has tried to bring you out of your sinful life, to break your attachment to the things of earth and draw you to His love.

Through selfless work, love of God grows in the heart. Then through his grace one realize him in course of time. God can be seen. One can talk to him as I am talking to you.

Whatever it is that can help to bring God close is something to be revered.

God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being made and let God be God in you.

I try to make my life about service, and hope that one day we can all 'see' a little better because God is with everyone and everywhere.

The single dynamic that helps people be most aware of God and most experiencing the fruit of the Spirit is gratitude.

The truth is that you can only come to know God when you give up the past and the future in your mind and merge totally into the now, because God is always here now.

Religion promotes the divine discontent within oneself, so that one tries to make oneself a better person and draw oneself closer to God.

When we live to the glory of God, we show His goodness living through us instead of just ourselves.

It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.

Nearness to God brings likeness to God. The more you see God the more of God will be seen in you.

We learn this by the precepts that Jesus left. He observed that the people were looking outward, and assured them that the kingdom of God cometh not with outward observation; and for this reason, that it was only to be known in man.

I've been saying for a couple of years now that people need to let God out of the Sunday morning box, that He doesn't want to just be with you for an hour or two on Sunday morning and then put back in His box to sit there until you have an emergency, but He wants to invade your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

It is always encouraging and kind when people say nice things about my work but I know that it is not me that did it then and it is not me that is doing it now. It is God living in me and for that I will always be grateful.

I'm always happy for people when I see God blessing them the way he's blessed me.

Ultimately, knowing God and reading the Word, it helps with patience with people, understanding, empathy and sympathy that they might not have that I have. If God gave it to me, why not exercise it?

God our Lord would have us look to the Giver and love Him more than His gift, keeping Him always before our eyes, in our hearts, and in our thoughts.

Everything we do should be a result of our gratitude for what God has done for us.

For Christians, they need to access the power of Jesus and not look at Christianity as a religion. It is our Lord Jesus that makes you change, and Christians need to actualize it and put it into practice.

'Doing your own thing' and being a Christian is an oxymoron. As Christians, every day we need to be presenting ourselves before the Lord, thanking Him for His mercy and asking Him to make us more like Him by emptying us of our will, so God's will can be done.

If we constantly give God the glory, then we don't have any glory to keep for ourselves.