Quote

Those who think that they have arrived, have lost their way. Those who think they have reached their goal, have missed it. Those who think they are saints, are demons.

Henri Nouwen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Henri Nouwen
Age: 64 †
Born: 1932
Born: January 24
Died: 1996
Died: September 21
Catholic Priest
Presbyter
Priest
Psychologist
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen
Lost
Arrived
Way
Saints
Think
Missed
Thinking
Demon
Reached
Saint
Finished
Goal
Demons

More quotes by Henri Nouwen

Image
As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.
Henri Nouwen
Image
We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.
Henri Nouwen
Image
My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.
Henri Nouwen
Image
The people who most affected me were the ones who got right in there with me, who cried with me, but who also had a certain authority, who dared to say what needed saying.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Our life is full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our lives.
Henri Nouwen
Image
While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will soon go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone but will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart... Joy in this perspective is the fruit of hope.
Henri Nouwen
Image
The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life.
Henri Nouwen
Image
It is God’s passionate pursuit of us that calls us to prayer.
Henri Nouwen
Image
When we keep claiming the light, we will find ourselves becoming more and more radiant.
Henri Nouwen
Image
As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their right place.
Henri Nouwen
Image
I am working on three things: on being a prayerful person on staying close to the handicapped and on my writing. These are my constant concerns.
Henri Nouwen
Image
For me the university has always been an ideal context for spiritual formation. I always felt that if you want to offer spiritual formation at the university, you can.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Solitude is very different from a 'time-out' from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.
Henri Nouwen
Image
What is forgotten cannot be healed, and that which cannot be healed easily becomes the cause of greater evil.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Listening is a form of spiritual hospitality by which you invite strangers to become friends, to get to know their inner selves more fully, and even to dare to be silent with you.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Once you are in communion with God, you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear other people in whom God has also found a dwelling place.
Henri Nouwen
Image
What once seemed such a curse has become a blessing. All the agony that threatened to destroy my life now seems like the fertile ground for greater trust, stronger hope, and deeper love.
Henri Nouwen
Image
One of the main tasks of theology is to find words that do not divide but unite, that do not create conflict but unity, that do not hurt but heal.
Henri Nouwen
Image
Prayer is not one of the many things the community does. Rather, it is its very beingBut when prayer is no longer its primary concern, and when its many activities are no longer seen and experienced as part of prayer itself, the community quickly degenerates into a club with a common cause but no common vocation.
Henri Nouwen