Henri Quotes

Ever since there have been men, man has given himself over to too little joy. That alone, my brothers, is our original sin. I should believe only in a God who understood how to dance. ~ Henri Matisse

Instinct must be thwarted just as one prunes the branches of a tree so that it will grow better. ~ Henri Matisse

The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides the immense sorrow that has gone before. The ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Once I look at the story of the prodigal son with the eyes of faith, the "return" of the prodigal becomes the return of the Son of God who has drawn all people into himself and brings them home to his heavenly Father. As Paul says: "God wanted all fullness to be found in him and through him to reconcile all things to him, everything in heaven and everything on earth. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

No sooner did the plan let them off at New Caledonia, than Barby found another friend. He was a Kanaka taxi driver, over six feet tall and muscled like a blacksmith, with sooty skin and hair turned yellow from many applications of lime, a standard native treatment for lice. He chewed betel incessantly, which Barby thought was fascinating, since it turned his tongue and lips the color of a ripe tomato. His name, he said in wonderfully bad English, was Henri. He pronounced it 'On-ree. ~ John Blaine

Man is a willful and covetous animal, who makes use of his intellect to satisfy his inclinations, but who cares nothing for truth, who rebels against personal discipline, who hates disinterested thought and the idea of self-education. Wisdom offends him, because it rouses in him disturbance and confusion, and because he will not see himself as he is. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

Christianity is not a law of bondage; and if it respect the hand of God which sometimes raises up tyrants, it draws up where obedience degenerates into guilty cowardice. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

Introducing the idea of beauty as a salve and of aesthetics making something difficult accessible. ~ Henri Cole

Spiritual maturity is not knowing what to do with your whole life, but just knowing what to do next. ~ Henri Nouwen

Anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries are the obvious signs that I have left home. And that happens quite easily. When I pay careful attention to what goes on in my mind from moment to moment, I come to the disconcerting discovery that there are very few moments during the day when I am really free from these dark emotions, passions and feelings.

Constantly falling back into an old trap, before I am even fully aware of it, I find myself wondering why someone hurt me, rejected me, or didn't pay attention to me. Without realizing it, I find myself brooding about someone else's success, my own loneliness, and the way the world abuses me. Despite my conscious intentions, I often catch myself daydreaming about becoming rich, powerful, and very famous. All of these mental games reveal to me the fragility of my faith that I am the Beloved One on whom God's favor rests. I am so afraid of being disliked, blamed, put aside, passed over, ignored, persecuted, and killed, that I am constantly developing strategies to defend myself and thereby assure myself of the love I think I need and deserve. And in so doing I move far away from my father's home and choose to dwell in a "distant country. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

I am alone all day, I read a little but it gives me a headache. I draw and I paint, as much as I can, so much so that my hand gets tired and when it begins to get dark I wait to see if Jeanne d'Armagnac [one of the cousins] will come and sit by my bed. She comes sometimes and tries to distract me and play with me, and I listen to her speak without daring to look at her, she is so tall and so beautiful! And I am neither tall nor beautiful. ~ Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

One would have to have completely forgotten the history of science so as to not remember that the desire to know nature has had the most constant and the happiest influence on the development of mathematics. ~ Henri Poincare

I am driven on by an idea that I really only grasp as it grows with the picture. ~ Henri Matisse

Pay attention to the people God puts in your path if you want to discern what God is up to in your life. ~ Henri Nouwen

Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
~ Henri Frederic Amiel

These two were together, but in reality far apart. They had left each other without leaving each other. ~ Henri Barbusse

The joy at the dramatic return of the younger son in no way means that the elder son was less loved, less appreciated, less favored. The father does not compare the two sons. He loves them both with a complete love and expresses that love according to their individual journeys. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think. ~ Robert Henri

If we knew exactly the laws of nature and the situation of the universe at the initial moment, we could predict exactly the situation of the same universe at a succeeding moment. ~ Henri Poincare

Mathematicians do not study objects, but relations between objects. ~ Henri Poincare

An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic. ~ Robert Henri

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see. ~ Henri Nouwen

Our true history is scarcely ever deciphered by others. The chief part of the drama is a monologue, or rather an intimate debate between God, our conscience, and ourselves. Tears, grieves, depressions, disappointments, irritations, good and evil thoughts, decisions, uncertainties, deliberations
all these belong to our secret, and are almost all incommunicable and intransmissible, even when we try to speak of them, and even when we write them down. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

But for harmony beautiful to contemplate, science would not be worth following. ~ Henri Poincare

Where there is life, there is hope. ~ Henri Charriere

Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or, rather, have made it desired. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

The main problem of service is to be the way without being "in the way." And if there are any tools, techniques and skills to be learned they are primarily to plow the field, to cut the weeds and to clip the branches, that is, to take away the obstacles for real growth and development. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

I am unable to make any distinction between the feeling I get from life and the way I translate that feeling into painting. ~ Henri Matisse

When you can look into the face of human beings and you have enough light to recognize them as your brothers and sisters. Up until then it is night and darkness is still with us. Let us pray for the light. It is the peace the world cannot give. ~ Henri Nouwen

Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home, and must look far and wide to find one. Home is the center of my being, where I can hear the voice that says, "You are my beloved. On you my favor rests," the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam. The same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light. I have heard that voice. It has spoken to me in the past and continues to speak to me now. It is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love wherever it is heard. When I hear that voice, I know that I am home with God and have nothing to fear. As the beloved of my heavenly Father, "I can walk in the valley of darkness: no evil would I fear." As the beloved I can "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils." Having "received without charge," I can "give without charge." As the Beloved, I can confront, console, admonish, and encourage without fear of rejection or need for affirmation. As the Beloved I can suffer persecution without desire for revenge and receive praise without using it as a proof of my goodness. As the Beloved I can be tortured and killed without ever having to doubt that the love that is given to me is stronger than death. As the Beloved I am free to live and give life, free also to die while giving life.
Jesus has made it clear to me that the same voice that h ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

It seems that laughter needs an echo. ~ Henri Bergson

Classicism, a brief, perfectly balanced instant of complete possession of forms; not a slow and monotonous application of 'rules,' but a pure, quick delight, like the acme of the Greeks, so delicate that the pointer of the scale scarcely trembles … ~ Henri Focillon

It beats all the things that wealth can give and everything else in the world to say the things one believes, to put them into form, to pass them on to anyone who may care to take them up. ~ Robert Henri

Beauty is an intangible thing; can not be fixed on the surface, and the wear and tear of old age on the body cannot defeat it. Nor will a "pretty" face make it, for "pretty" faces are often dull and empty, and beauty is never dull and it fills all spaces. ~ Robert Henri

Where is peace to be found? The answer is surprising but clear. In weakness. Why there? Because in our weakness, our familiar ways of controlling and manipulating our world are being stripped away, and we are forced to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are most vulnerable, the peace that is not of this world is mysteriously hidden. ~ Henri Nouwen

For Christians, the first of books is the Gospel and the Rosary is actually the abridgement of the Gospel. ~ Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire

The power of loving a God whom religion paints as the most detestable of beings would, doubtless, be a proof of the most supernatural grace, that is, a grace the most contrary to nature; to love that which we do not know, is, assuredly, sufficiently difficult; to love that which we fear, is still more difficult; but to love that which is exhibited to us in the most repulsive colors, is manifestly impossible. ~ Paul Henri Thiry D'Holbach

In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face, and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hands. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Vane pulled out his wallet and handed several hundred dollar bills to Henri. "Do me a favor. That guy downstairs Taylor. Give him the worst table in the house."
Henri's eyes danced with amusement. "For you, Mr. Kattalakis, anything." Vane took his seat as Henri walked off.
"That was so bad of you," she said with a coy smile.
"Do you want me to take it back?"
"Hardly. I was merely pointing out that it was bad."
"What can I say? I'm just a big bad wolf. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

We can be unhappy about many things, but jy can still be there ... It is important to become aware that at every moment of our life we have an opportunity to choose joy ... It is in the choice that our true freedom lies, and that freedom is, in the final analysis, the freedom to love. ~ Henri Nouwen

A new painting is a unique event, a birth, which enriches the universe as it is grasped by the human mind, by bringing a new form into it. ~ Henri Matisse

You want to paint? First of all you must cut off your tongue because your decision takes away from you the right to express yourself with anything but your brush. ~ Henri Matisse

Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

The more a man loves, the more he suffers. The sum of possible grief for each soul is in proportion to its degree of perfection. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

There are mighty few people who think what they think they think. ~ Robert Henri

It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

If I were to ask about my seven months at the Abbey, "Did it work, did I solve my problems?" the simple answer would be, "It did not work, it did not solve my problems." And I know that a year, two years, or even a lifetime as a Trappist monk would not have "worked" either. Because a monastery is not built to solve problems but to praise the Lord in the midst of them. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient. ~ Henri Poincare

What is important is how well we love. God will make our
love fruitful, whether we see that fruitfulness or not. ~ Henri Nouwen

Prayer and action ... can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. ~ Henri Nouwen

We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with Him and Him alone. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. Solitude is a place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

For a long time the objects that mathematicians dealt with were mostly ill-defined; one believed one knew them, but one represented them with the senses and imagination; but one had but a rough picture and not a precise idea on which reasoning could take hold. ~ Henri Poincare

Forgive those who have made you suffer. ~ Henri Charriere

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation. ~ Henri Bergson

have seen how the fear of becoming subject to God's revenge and punishment has paralyzed the mental and emotional lives of many people, independently of their age, religion, or life-style. This paralyzing fear of God is one of the great human tragedies. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

In order to give meaning to the world, one has to feel oneself involved in what he frames. This attitude requires concentration, a discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

As we are involved in unceasing thinking, so we are called to unceasing prayer. ~ Henri Nouwen

To die to our neighbors means to stop judging them, to stop evaluating them, and thus to become free to be compassionate. Compassion can never coexist with judgment because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from really being with the other. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

The wise person questions himself, the fool others. ~ Henri Arnold Seyrig

Well, I don't know no woman of breeding. (Bart)
And I am sure the ladies of the world over are now breathing a collective sigh of relief. (Henri) ~ Kinley MacGregor

Knowledge, love, power-there is the complete life. ~ Henri Frederic Amiel

The way of Jesus is radically different. It is the way not of upward mobility but of downward mobility. It is going to the bottom, staying behind the sets and choosing the last place! Why is the way of Jesus worth choosing? Because it is the way to the Kingdom, the way Jesus took, and the way that brings everlasting life. ~ Henri Nouwen

It was from him, and from this picture in particular, that Henri Cartier-Bresson had developed the ideal of the decisive moment. Photography seemed to me, as I stood there in the white gallery with its rows of pictures and its press of murmuring spectators, an uncanny art like no other. One moment, in all of history, was captured, but the moments before and after it disappeared into the onrush of time; only that selected moment itself was privileged, saved, for no other reason than its having been picked out by the camera's eye. ~ Teju Cole

The arts have a development which comes not only from the individual but also from a whole acquired force, the civilization which precedes us. One cannot do just anything. A talented artist cannot do whatever he pleases. If he only used his gifts, he would not exist. We are not the masters of what we produce. It is imposed on us. ~ Henri Matisse

It seems to me that before a man tries to express anything to the world he must recognize in himself an individual, a new one, very distinct from others. ~ Robert Henri

The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Although claiming my true identity as a child of God, I still live as though the God to whom I am returning demands an explanation. I still think about his love as conditional and about home as a place I am not yet fully sure of. While walking home, I keep entertaining doubts about whether I will be truly welcome when I get there. As I look at my spiritual journey, my long and fatiguing trip home, I see how full it is of guilt about the past and worries about the future. I realize my failures and know that I have lost the dignity of my sonship, but I am not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great, 'grace is always greater.' Still clinging to my sense of worthlessness, I project for myself a place far below that which belongs to the son, (p. 52). ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

On the edge of a tropical ocean, in a thousand reflections of the silver light of an invisible moon, among undulations of restless waters, ceaselessly changing ...
Among silent breakers, the tremors of the shining surface, in the swift flux and reflux martyrizing the patches of light, in the rendings of luminous loops and arcs, and lines, in the occultations and reappearances of dancing bursts of light being decomposed, recomposed, contracted, spread out, only to be re-distributed once more before me, with me, within me, drowned, and unendurably buffeted, my calm violated a thousand times by the tongues of infinity, oscillating, sinusoidally overrun by the multitude of liquid lines. enormous with a thousand folds, I was and I was not, I was caught, I was lost, I was in a state of complete ubiquity. The thousands upon thousands of rustlings were my own thousand shatterings. ~ Henri Michaux

We cannot make it rain but we can see to it that the rain falls on prepared soil. ~ Henri Nouwen

There are pictures that manifest education and there are pictures that manifest love. ~ Robert Henri

Everywhere and always ugliness has its beautiful aspects; it is thrilling to discover them where nobody else has noticed them. ~ Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

Why should a man marry and have children, study and build a career; why should he invent new techniques, build new institutions, and develop new ideas--when he doubts if there will be a tomorrow which can guarantee the value of human effort?
Crucial here for nuclear man is the lack of a sense of continuity, which is so vital for a creative life. He finds himself part of a nonhistory in which only the sharp moment of the here and now is valuable. For nuclear man life easily becomes a bow whose string is broken and from which no arrow can fly. In his dislocated state he becomes paralyzed. His reactions are not anxiety and joy, which were so much a part of existential man, but apathy and boredom. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Rene Char wrote somewhere, apropos poetry, that there are those who create and those who discover; they are too completely different worlds. Photograph also has two sides to it and thank goodness, I am only intersted in those who discover; I feel a certain solidarity with those who set out in a spirit of discovery; I think there is much more risk invovled in this than in trying to create images; and in the end, reality is more important. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

I watched her cry
drown herself in a flood of tears. It is a great thing to be in the presence of a rational being who cries. A weak, broken creature shedding tears makes the same impression as an all-powerful god to whom one prays. In her weakness and defeat Amy was above human power. ~ Henri Barbusse

Human suffering is a positive thing, which requires a positive answer, and sad as it is, the word is beautiful, because of the absolute truth it contains.[...] It is an error to believe that we can be happy in perfect calm and clearness, as abstract as a formula. We are made too much out of shadow and some form of suffering. If everything that hurts us were to be removed, what would remain? ~ Henri Barbusse

Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality. ~ Henri Bergson

A prayerful life is not a life in which we say many prayers, but a life in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is done, said, or understood independently of him who is the origin and purpose of our existence. ~ Henri Nouwen

You pass people on the street, some are for you, some are not. ~ Robert Henri

Joy and laughter are the gifts of living in the presence of God and trusting that tomorrow is not worth worrying about. ~ Henri Nouwen

Those who are unacquainted with the details of scientific investigation have no idea of the amount of labour expended in the determination of those numbers on which important calculations or inferences depend. They have no idea of the patience shown by a Berzelius in determining atomic weights; by a Regnault in determining coefficients of expansion; or by a Joule in determining the mechanical equivalent of heat. ~ John Tyndall

Jesus lived this joy of the Father's house to the full. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

A happy life is a life for others. ~ Henri Nouwen

Impressionism is the newspaper of the soul ~ Henri Matisse

Our hearts and minds desire clarity. We like to have a clear picture of a situation, a clear view of how things fit together, and clear insight into our own and the world's problems. But just as in nature colors and shapes mingle without clear-cut distinctions, human life doesn't offer the clarity we are looking for. The borders between love and hate, evil and good, beauty and ugliness, heroism and cowardice, care and neglect, guilt and blamelessness are mostly vague, ambiguous, and hard to discern. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Your only hope of satisfying others is in satisfying yourself. I speak of a great satisfaction, not a commercial satisfaction. ~ Robert Henri

Mourning our losses is the first step away from resentment and toward gratitude. The tears of our grief can soften our hardened hearts and open us to the possibility to say thanks. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

The portrait is one of the most curious art forms. It demands special qualities in the artist, and an almost total kinship with the model. ~ Henri Matisse

If you want to know anything about community, you have to realize that the contemplative side is essential. Community without retreating and quiet time never survives. ~ Henri Nouwen

Then Chameroy spoke. 'You always put the blame on opium, but as I see it the case of Freneuse is much more complicated. Him, an invalid? No - a character from the tales of Hoffmann! Have you never taken the trouble to look at him carefully? That pallor of decay; the twitching of his bony hands, more Japanese than chrysanthemums; the arabesque profile; that vampiric emaciation - has all of that never given you cause to reflect? In spite of his supple body and his callow face Freneuse is a hundred thousand years old. That man has lived before, in ancient times under the reigns of Heliogabalus, Alexander IV and the last of the Valois. What am I saying? That man is Henri III himself. I have in my library an edition of Ronsard - a rare edition, bound in pigskin with metal trimmings - which contains a portrait of Henri engraved on vellum. One of these nights I will bring the volume here to show you, and you may judge for yourselves. Apart from the ruff, the doublet and the earrings, you would believe that you were looking at the Due de Freneuse. As far as I'm concerned, his presence here inevitably makes me ill - and so long as he is present, there is such an oppression, such a heaviness... ~ Jean Lorrain

Hatred is a parasite that devours all. One doesn't build upon hatred, but upon love. ~ Henri Matisse

It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

You can love a woman. To admire her is hard. You are not dealing with something important. ~ Henri Michaux

I told him of the queen's refusal to see me, and"- he hesitated, his cheeks coloring slightly- "about the beautiful maiden I met in the castle gardens."
"You did?" she asked, unsure why she was so taken with the fact that he'd mentioned her.
"Yes," Henri smiled shyly.
"Oh, brother," she heard Grumpy mumble. ~ Jen Calonita

Freedom for me is a strict frame, and inside that frame are all the variations possible. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

We shall not dwell for the present on the effort to delve down to the depths of our being. If possible at all, it is exceptional: and it is on the surface, at the point where it inserts itself into the close-woven tissue of other exteriorised personalities, that our ego generally finds its point of attachment; its solidity lies in this solidarity. ~ Henri Bergson

A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view. ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson

A memory rises: Etienne was in a field east of the city with his brother. It was the summer when fireflies showed up in Saint-Malo, and their father was very excited, building long-handled nets for the boys and giving them jars with wire to fasten over the tops, and Etienne and Henri raced through the tall grass as the fireflies floated away from them, illuming on and off, always seeming to rise just beyond their reach, as if the earth were smoldering and these were sparks that their footfalls had prodded free. ~ Anthony Doerr

I am made of all that I have seen. ~ Henri Matisse