Henri Nouwen Quotes About Rejection

Quotes about: Rejection

• The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection.

  Henri Nouwen

  Self, Rejection, Meaningful Life

  Henri J. M. Nouwen (2017). “You are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living”, p.10, Hachette UK

• The more you have loved and have allowed yourself to suffer because of your love, the more you will be able to let your heart grow wider and deeper. When your love is truly giving and receiving, those whom you love will not leave your heart even when they depart from you. The pain of rejection, absence, and death can become fruitful. Yes, as you love deeply the ground of your heart will be broken more and more, but you will rejoice in the abundance of the fruit it will bear.

  Henri Nouwen

  Pain, Heart, Love Is

• Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the Beloved.

  Henri Nouwen

  Spiritual, Self, Voice

  Henri Nouwen (2013). “Discernment: Reading the signs of daily life”, p.54, SPCK

• 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 embrace... We must dare to opt consciously for our chosenness and not allow our emotions, feelings, or passions to seduce us into self-rejection.

  Henri Nouwen

  Children, Passion, Eye

• A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.

  Henri Nouwen

  Ocean, Struggle, Self

  Henri Nouwen (2013). “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming”, p.42, Image

• 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 Nouwen

  Running, Spiritual, Self

• Of one thing I am sure. Complaining is self-perpetuating and counterproductive. Whenever I express my complaints in the hope of evoking pity and receiving the satisfaction I so much desire, the result is always the opposite of what I tried to get. A complainer is hard to live with, and very few people know how to respond to the complaints made by a self-rejecting person. The tragedy is that, often, the complaint, once expressed, leads to that which is most feared: further rejection.

  Henri Nouwen

  Self, Opposites, People

  Henri J.M. Nouwen (2016). “The Return of the Prodigal Son Anniversary Edition: A Special Two-in-One Volume, including Home Tonight”, p.80, Convergent Books

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