Henri Nouwen Quotes

it is a sad truth in life that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed.

I am compassionate. I allow my heart and imagination to embrace the difficulties and concerns of others. While maintaining my own balance, I find it within myself to extend sympathy, attention, and support. When they are grieved, I listen with openness and gentle strength. I offer loyalty, friendship, and human understanding. Without undermining or enabling, I aid and assist others to find their strength. I allow the healing power of the Universe to flow through me, soothing the hearts and feelings of those I encounter.

Though sympathy alone can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go... And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.

Eleonora Duse said, "Tell me about Deirdre and Patrick," and made me repeat to her all their little sayings and ways, and show her their photos, which she kissed and cried over. She never said "Cease to grieve", but she grieved with me, and, for the first time since their death, I felt I was not alone.

I think being compassionate of each other's lives and issues is nonnegotiable when it comes to friendships. We're all going through different stages and issues, and as I get older, I'm trying to lean into that.

Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens.

It's as if I'm taking away his pain and he's taking away mine.

Mercy is a source of life because we breathe our own spirits through it into the lives of others.

Friends love misery... our misery is what endears us to our friends.

And as ridiculous as it may sound, sometimes all any of us needs in life is for someone to hold our hand and walk next to us.

Those who have suffered make the best comforters.

That was what a best friend did: hold up a mirror and show you your heart.

In your heart must well that sympathy which soothes away all pains from the hearts of others.

Warmth, kindness, and friendship are the most yearned for commodities in the world. The person who can provide them will never be lonely.

Joy multiplies when it is shared among friends, but grief diminishes with every division. That is life.

The difference between friendship and love is how much you can hurt each other.

Friends share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand.

When you feel scared, hold someone's hand and look into their eyes. And when you feel brave, do the same thing. You are all here because you are smart. And you are brave. And if you add kindness and the ability to change a tire, you almost make up the perfect person.

Because of a friend, life is a little stronger, fuller, more gracious thing for the friend's existence, whether he be near or far. If the friend is close at hand, that is best; but if he is far away he still is there to think of, to wonder about, to hear from, to write to, to share life and experience with, to serve, to honor, to admire, to love.

A visitor is a friend, he brings news, good or bad, which is bread to the hungry minds in lonely places. A real friend who comes to the house is a heavenly messenger, who brings the panis angelorum.

Again and again, I learn how much friendship enriches my life, bringing warmth, assurance, humour, inspiration, a sense of security. It depends on honesty, trust, loyalty. It's about giving. It's for sharing the good times, but also the tough times, hurt, grief, sadness.

I came to feel as protective of Elijah as Sam does of Frodo .. In turn, Elijah helped me discover a lot about myself and I literally might not have survived the journey had this young prince of an actor not taken me under his wing.

I let it all out--my mom's date,my dad's conversation,my confusion about it all.Caleb doesn't laugh,he doesn't pull away,he doesn't talk .. He just lets me be me. When I settle down,I lean back and witness the mess I've made on his shirt."I made ur shirt all gross," I say between sniffles. "Forget the shirt.What's going on? I could.nt understand a word you mumbled into my chest." Now I'm half laughing and half crying.

Where love is, what can be wanting? Where it is not, what can possibly be profitable?