Henri Nouwen
Dutch Catholic priest, professor, psychologist, and spiritual writer whose books — including The Wounded Healer (1972), The Return of the Prodigal Son (1992), Life of the Beloved, In the Name of Jesus, Reaching Out, and Out of Solitude — have sold more than seven million copies and are taught widely across denominational lines as foundational texts of pastoral and contemplative Christianity. Born 1932 in Nijkerk, ordained in 1957, Nouwen taught at the Menninger Foundation, Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard before leaving academia in 1986 to live as pastor in residence at L'Arche Daybreak — a community for adults with intellectual disabilities near Toronto — where he remained until his death in 1996. His writing turns repeatedly to a small set of themes: belovedness as the foundation of identity, brokenness as the doorway to communion, hospitality as the heart of Christian practice, and downward mobility as the shape of a Christ-following life.
quotes in library
Quotes by Henri Nouwen
112 quotes“Do not look to people for what only God can give.”
“Be patient with everything unresolved in your heart.”
“Try to love the questions themselves.”
“Live the questions.”
“Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
“Each human being is unique, irreplaceable, infinitely precious.”
“To live as if this were true changes everything.”
“Suffering is part of the human condition. It cannot be eliminated.”
“But it can be transformed by love.”
“And it can be redeemed by purpose.”
“And it can be borne by community.”
“Listening is much more than allowing another to talk.”
“Listening is paying full attention to others.”
“And welcoming them into our very beings.”
“The beauty of listening is that those who are listened to start feeling accepted.”
“They start taking themselves more seriously.”
“They start trusting their inner voice.”
“This is the gift of true listening.”
“To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life.”
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