Henri Nouwen Quotes

Hope is like a path in the countryside. Originally, there is nothing - but as people walk this way again and again, a path appears.

In this life, anything can happen - and what can help bring it to pass is Hope

The one thing that I cannot do without each day is hope.

The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.

I think the one thing that I cannot do without each day is hope. If you put me in a position where you took all my hope away, I'm not sure I could make it through the day.

Hope is the enduring belief in the attainability of fervent wishes, in spite of the dark urges and rages which mark the beginning of existence. Hope is the ontogenetic basis of faith, and is nourished by the adult faith which pervades patterns of care.

At bottom, everything depends upon the presence or absence of one single element in the soul - HOPE

Oh, what a valiant faculty is hope.

The most important word in the English language is hope.

"Hope, you see, Wal'r," said the Captain, sagely, "Hope. It's that as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats; it can't be steered nowhere. Along with the figure-head of Hope,' said the Captain, 'there's a anchor; but what's the good of my having a anchor, if I can't find no bottom to let it go in?"

Hope is a path on the mountainside. At first there is no path. But then there are people passing that way. And there is a path.

Spira, spera. (breathe, hope)

That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man.

I am of the opinion, and even more so the older I get, that it is more difficult to have hope than it is to despair. And I mean this in the sense that in order to have hope you must acknowledge the despair and then you have to get beyond it. Taken from a radio interview given on BBC Radio 4's Open Book

Hope saves a person in the midst of misfortunes.

Some of my cronies call me a pessimist and a decadent, but there is always a background of faith behind resignation.

Everything one records contains a grain of hope, no matter how deeply it may come from despair.

Of all our feelings the only one which really doesn't belong to us is hope. Hope belongs to life, it's life itself defending itself. Etcetera.

The very purpose of our life is happiness, which is sustained by hope. We have no guarantee about the future, but we exist in the hope of something better. Hope means keeping going, thinking, ‘I can do this.’ It brings inner strength, self-confidence , the ability to do what you do honestly, truthfully and transparently.

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. Others have called this deepest quality confidence, and I have referred to trust as the earliest positive psychosocial attitude, but if life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.

Hope, and hopelessness, persist despite the facts.

Sorrows do not last forever when we are journeying towards the thing we have always wanted.

The word "hope" I take for faith; and indeed hope is nothing else but the constancy of faith.