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"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."
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Exlpore more Friendship quotes
"When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend."
"The final test for a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define."
"Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."
"The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself."
"To me, re-reading my favorite books is like spending time with my best friends.I'd never be satisfied to limit myself to just one experience each with my favorite people."
"This was what I liked most about my friends: just sitting around and telling stories. Window stories and mirror stories. I only listened - the stories on my mind weren't that funny."
"My friend has a baby. I'm recording all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant."
"That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of."
"While conscience is our friend, all is at peace; however once it is offended, farewell to a tranquil mind."
"Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people--that's in your hands."
Explore more quotes by Henri Nouwen
"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means 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."
"Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared."
"Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure."
"I can be happy or unhappy in all situations. I am sure of it, because I have been. I have felt distraught and joyful in situations of abundance as well as poverty, in situations of popularity and anonymity, in situations of success and failure. The difference was never based on the situation itself, but always on my state of mind and heart. When I knew I was walking with God, I always felt happy and at peace. When I was entangled in my own complaints and emotional needs, I always felt restless and divided."
"Praying demands that you take to the road again and again, leaving your house and looking forward to a new land for yourself and your fellow human. This is why praying demands poverty, that is, the readiness to live a life in which you have nothing to lose so that you always begin afresh."
"Jesus changes our history from a random series of sad incidents and accidents into a constant opportunity for a change of heart."
"Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come."
"When we feel lonely we keep looking for a person or persons who can take our loneliness away. Our lonely hearts cry out, 'Please hold me, touch me, speak to me, pay attention to me.' But soon we discover that the person we expect to take our loneliness away cannot give us what we ask for. Often that person feels oppressed by our demands and runs away, leaving us in despair. As long as we approach another person from our loneliness, no mature human relationship can develop. Clinging to one another in loneliness is suffocating and eventually becomes destructive. For love to be possible we need the courage to create space between us and to trust that this space allows us to dance together."
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