Henri Nouwen Solitude Quotations

Solitude is very different from a 'time-out' from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.

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.

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

If you start with community and want to be faithful to community, you have to realize that what binds you together is not mutual compatibility or common tasks, but God. In order to stay in touch with that call to community, we always have to return to solitude.

In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.

Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life. ...We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.

I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.

If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation.

Community always calls us back to solitude, and solitude always calls us to community. Community and solitude, both, are essential elements of ministry and witnessing.

Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.

Solitude is the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter.

In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.