Henri Nouwen Quotes

People forget that I'm a human being, just because I play a sport that everybody loves. We're human. We're not invincible. We share the same feelings and emotions that people on the outside feel. I don't think people really understand that.

Unless a man has pity he is not truly a man. If a man has not wept at the worlds pain he is only half a man, and there will always be pain in the world, knowing this does not mean that a man shall dispair. A good man will seek to take pain out of things. A foolish man will not even notice it, except in himself, and the poor unfortunate evil man will drive pain deeper into things and spread it about wherever he goes.

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

I fancied I had some constancy of mind because I could bear my own sufferings, but found through the sufferings of others I could be weakened like a child.

When compassion wakes up in us, we find ourselves more willing to become vulnerable, to take the risk of entering the pain of others.

Somehow I find it easier to inhabit characters if they are a little bit pathetic. I do seem to have an affinity with pathetic people.

The measure of a decent human being is how he or she treats the defenseless.

It's one of them things that no matter how indestructible we look like we are, we're all human at the end of the day. We all got feelings... all of that.

Your compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share.

Compassion- which means, literally, "to suffer with"- is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed the main spiritual question is not, "What difference do you make?" but "What do you have in common?" It is not "excelling" but "serving" that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation.

Purity of heart is love for the weak who constantly fall.

The Little Boy and the Old Man Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my spoon." Said the old man, "I do that too." The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants." I do that too," laughed the little old man. Said the little boy, "I often cry." The old man nodded, "So do I." But worst of all," said the boy, "it seems Grown-ups don't pay attention to me." And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand. I know what you mean," said the little old man.

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.

Why don't you ever use your strength on me?" she said. Because love means renouncing strength," said Franz softly.

Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.

What separates humans from other animals is our empathy. With the possible exception of bonobos, we are the most empathetic animal on the planet.

My mother is always the most vulnerable person in any room, and so I definitely have that part of her inside me.

We're all human; we all have weaknesses.

If you can understand, you can feel compassion.

I hate Sridevi. I hate her for making me realise that she, too, is finally only just a human being. I hate that her heart, too, has to beat to live.

Remember that I am a human.

The great thing about acting is you don't have to worry about yourself at all. I tend to just get out of the way of me and let something come through.

I'm not fond of kicking a man when he's down.

I'm only human.