Henri Nouwen

Every time I think I have reached the peak, I look up and see I still have a ways to go. But I look back and see just how far I have come.

All successful men have agreed in one thing – they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things.

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.

Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself.

Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity does best discover vice, but adversity does best discover virtue.

More than once I had seen a noble who had gotten his enemy at a disadvantage stop to pray before cutting his throat.

The two parties which divide the state, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation, are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made.

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

To be in time is to be asleep: to be awake is to be in eternity.

Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.