Prayer is the beginning and the end, the source and the fruit, the core and the content, the basis and the goal of all peacemaking.

- Henri Nouwen

As peacemakers, we must resist all the powers of war and destruction and proclaim that peace is the divine gift offered to all who affirm life. Resistance means saying 'No' to all the forces of death, wherever they may be.

- Henri Nouwen

Most Christian leadership is exercised by people who do not know how to develop healthy, intimate relationships and have opted for power and control instead. Many Christian empire-builders have been people unable to give and receive love.

- Henri Nouwen

Too many of us are lonely ministers practicing a lonely ministry.

- Henri Nouwen

In their poverty, the mentally handicapped reveal God to us and hold us close to the gospel.

- Henri Nouwen

I have an increasing sense that the most important crisis of our time is spiritual and that we need places where people can grow stronger in the spirit and be able to integrate the emotional struggles in their spiritual journeys.

- Henri Nouwen

To be a Christian who is willing to travel with Christ on his downward road requires being willing to detach oneself constantly from any need to be relevant, and to trust ever more deeply the Word of God.

- Henri Nouwen

In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered.

- Henri Nouwen

I've had a tremendous problem with depression in my life. I'd rather not talk about it, because it's over. But depression is real.

- Henri Nouwen

Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger.

- Henri Nouwen

Asking people for money is giving them the opportunity to put their resources at the disposal of the Kingdom.

- Henri Nouwen

The evangelical movement has become just a bit victimized by a success-oriented culture, wanting the church - like the corporation - to be successful.

- Henri Nouwen

In solitude we become aware that we were together before we came together and that life is not a creation of our will but rather an obedient response to the reality of our being united.

- Henri Nouwen

'How much longer will I live?'... Only one thing seems clear to me. Every day should be well-lived. What a simple truth! Still, it is worthy of my attention.

- Henri Nouwen

Fear is the great enemy of intimacy. Fear makes us run away from each other or cling to each other but does not create true intimacy.

- Henri Nouwen

Our efforts to disconnect ourselves from our own suffering end up disconnecting our suffering from God's suffering for us. The way out of our loss and hurt is in and through.

- Henri Nouwen

Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.

- Henri Nouwen

Friendship has always belonged to the core of my spiritual journey.

- Henri Nouwen

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

Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.

- Henri Nouwen