To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.
THOMAS MERTONPrayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him who loves us, who is near to us.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.
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The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.
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For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God’s will, to be what God wants us to be.
THOMAS MERTON -
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.
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Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.
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Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
THOMAS MERTON -
Prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him who loves us, who is near to us.
THOMAS MERTON -
Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.
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When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.
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From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.
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Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.
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Perhaps I am stronger than I think.
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Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.
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Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.
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The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.
THOMAS MERTON