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#1

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
― Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

tags: empathy, friends, friendship, inspirational

14196 likes

#2

“To care means first of all to empty our own cup and to allow the other to come close to us. It means to take away the many barriers which prevent us from entering into communion with the other. When we dare to care, then we discover that nothing human is foreign to us, but that all the hatred and love, cruelty and compassion, fear and joy can be found in our own hearts. When we dare to care, we have to confess that when others kill, I could have killed too. When others torture, I could have done the same. When others heal, I could have healed too. And when others give life, I could have done the same. Then we experience that we can be present to the soldier who kills, to the guard who pesters, to the young man who plays as if life has no end, and to the old man who stopped playing out of fear for death.

By the honest recognition and confession of our human sameness, we can participate in the care of God who came, not to the powerful but powerless, not to be different but the same, not to take our pain away but to share it. Through this participation we can open our hearts to each other and form a new community.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

tags: care, church, community, empathy, experience, jesus, mankind

32 likes

#3

“Those who really can receive bread from a stranger and smile in gratitude, can feed many without even realizing it. Those who can sit in silence with their fellow man not knowing what to say but knowing that they should be there, can bring new life in a dying heart. Those who are not afraid to hold a hand in gratitude, to shed tears in grief, and to let a sigh of distress arise straight from the heart, can break through paralyzing boundaries and witness the birth of a new fellowship, the fellowship of the broken.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

tags: caring, compassion, empathy, gratitude, ministry, pain, priesthood-of-all-believers

21 likes

#4

“This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, 'Where can we find a doctor?' When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

tags: caring, church, ministry, priesthood-of-all-believers, specialization

13 likes

#5

“What does it mean to care? Let me start by saying that the word care has become a very ambivalent word. When someone says: 'I will take care of him!' it is more likely an announcement of an impending attack than of a tender compassion. And besides this ambivalence, the word is most often used in a negative way. 'Do you want coffee or tea?' 'I don't care.' 'Do you want to stay home or go to a movie?' 'I don't care.' 'Do you want to walk or go by car?' 'I don't care.' This expression of indifference toward choices in life has become commonplace. And often it seems that not to care has become more acceptable than to care, and a carefree life-style more attractive than a careful one.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

tags: caring

9 likes

#6

“Is God present or is he absent? Maybe we can say now that in the center of our sadness for his absence we can find the first signs of his presence. And that in the middle of our longings we discover the footprints of the one who has created them. It is in the faithful waiting for the loved one that we know how much he has filled our lives already. Just as the love of a mother for her son can grow while she is waiting for his return, and just as lovers can rediscover each other during long periods of absence, so also our intimate relationship with God can become deeper and more mature while we wait patiently in expectation for his return.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

tags: expectation, jesus, second-coming, waiting

6 likes

#7

“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

tags: beloved, christianity, faith, feelings, identity, rejection, self, spiritual-life, spiritual-warfare, success, temptation, truth

1223 likes

#8

“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life

359 likes

#9

“A friend is more than a therapist or confessor, even though a friend can sometimes heal us and offer us God's forgiveness. A friend is that other person with whom we can share our solitude, our silence, and our prayer. A friend is that other person with whom we can look at a tree and say, "Isn't that beautiful," or sit on the beach and silently watch the sun disappear under the horizon. With a friend we don't have to say or do something special. With a friend we can be still and know that God is there with both of us.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

tags: friendship

297 likes

#10

“As soon as we are alone,...inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediatel;y shut ou all our iner doubts, anxieities, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distraction manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Making All Things New and Other Classics

tags: solitude

260 likes

#11

“To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

tags: loneliness

140 likes

#12

“I kept running around it in large or small circles, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness.

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved". Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

tags: existence, self-rejection

98 likes

#13

“First of all, you have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: 'These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God's eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting belief.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

tags: despair, god-s-love

101 likes

#14

“The soul of the artist cannot remain hidden.”
― Henri Nouwen

77 likes

#15

“When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments — the results of our actions — to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we created by our last successes. In many people’s lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

tags: accolades, anxiety, fear, self-esteem, success, work

59 likes

#16

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

tags: aliteracy, attributed-no-source, literacy

41001 likes

#17

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

tags: individuality, majority, minority, pause, reflect, wisdom

43891 likes

#18

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

tags: attributed-no-source, education

18231 likes

#19

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”
― Mark Twain

tags: living, world

8288 likes

#20

“What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce.”
― Mark Twain

tags: humor, men, women

4699 likes

#21

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
― Mark Twain

tags: arrogance, humor, ignorance

4222 likes

#22

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.”
― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad / Roughing It

tags: travel

3987 likes

#23

“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?”
― Mark Twain

tags: books-bible

2557 likes

#24

“Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

tags: congratulations, encourage, encouraging, succeed, success

683 likes

#25

“I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. Whatever may happen to me, thank God that I can read, that I have truly touched the minds of other men.”
― Walter Tevis, Mockingbird

tags: literacy, reading

253 likes

#26

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

tags: better-life-empathy

18378 likes

#27

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”
― Kofi Annan

tags: human-rights, literacy

176 likes

#28

“Some people talk about other people’s failures with so much pleasure that you would swear they are talking about their own successes.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

tags: aphorism, aphorisms, condemn, criticism, criticize, deplore, enemies, enemy, envious, envy, failure, failures, gossip, humor, humour, jealous, jealousy, please, pleasure, quotation, quotations, quote, quotes, satire, success, successes, swear

90 likes

#29

“Some people avoid thinking deeply in public, only because they are afraid of coming across as suicidal.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

tags: adage, adages, afraid, africa, african, aphorism, aphorisms, avoid, axiom, axioms, deep, depress, depressed, depressing, depression, dictum, dictums, epigram, epigrams, fear, fearful, funny, gnome, gnomes, humor, humorous, humour, impression, in-public, insightful, made-me-think, make-you-think, maxim, maxims, philosopher, philosophy, private, profound, proverb, proverbs, provoke-thought, public, quotation, quotations, quote, quote-of-the-day, quotes, satire, satirical, satirist, satirists, saying, sayings, seem, south-africa, south-african, stoic, stoicism, stoics, suicidal, suicide, think, thinker, thinkers, thinking, thought-provoking, thoughtful

66 likes

#30

“You may have tangible wealth untold; caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be. I had a mother who read to me.”
― Strickland Gillian

tags: inspirational, literacy, love, mother, quote, reading, strickland-gillian, wealth

112 likes

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