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Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.

Thomas Merton

Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.
THOMAS MERTON

Better God Nature Spiritual Tree Wind
Before we can realize who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger.
THOMAS MERTON

Best Deep Imitation Ourselves Person Philosophy Stranger Thinking
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
THOMAS MERTON

Art Lose Ourselves Time
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Beginning Love Perfection Willing
Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am.
THOMAS MERTON

Ambition Discover Myself Philosophy Result See
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.
THOMAS MERTON

Business Job Kindness Love Ourselves Stop Worth
We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.
THOMAS MERTON

Alone Life Live Ourselves True
You are made in the image of what you desire.
THOMAS MERTON

Build Desire Image Yourself
Our real journey in life is interior.
THOMAS MERTON

Journey Life Ourselves Reality
May God prevent us from becoming “right-thinking men”-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.
THOMAS MERTON

God Man Ourselves Perfection Right Thinking Vice
When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.
THOMAS MERTON

God Imagination Mindset Nature Reality Silence Tongue Yourself
Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Capacity Fear Heart Love Ourselves Power
Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.
THOMAS MERTON

Gratitude Respond Wake Up Wonder
Our real journey in life is interior; It is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary to respond to that action.
THOMAS MERTON

Action Deep Grace Growth Heart Journey Necessary Reality Respond
Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by force from outside. We impose it on our world and upon one another from within ourselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Anxiety Force Ourselves Time Willing
Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith.
THOMAS MERTON

Believe Faith God Man Material Negative Quick

Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.

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Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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