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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

Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.
THOMAS MERTON

Greedy Hate Injustice Peace People Philosophy Soul Thinking War Yourself
Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false Self. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Embrace Goodness Illusion Ourselves Person Recognition Shadow
The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
THOMAS MERTON

Live Ourselves Purpose
We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.
THOMAS MERTON

Deep God Ourselves Peace Spiritual
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
What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give to others.
THOMAS MERTON

Acceptance Desire Generosity Goodness Greatness Life Live Love Ourselves Self Love
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
Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard at least occasionally.
THOMAS MERTON

Enough Need Ourselves Silence Voice
We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.
THOMAS MERTON

Achievement Greatness Lose Success
In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.
THOMAS MERTON

Confusion Discipline Fight Love Necessary Peace Philosophy Place Wisdom World
You are made in the image of what you desire.
THOMAS MERTON

Build Desire Image Yourself
People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
THOMAS MERTON

Live People Reach Success Wall Wrong
Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.
THOMAS MERTON

Death Disturb Philosophy Violence
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.
THOMAS MERTON

Art Artist Harmony Kind Moral Mystery Truth
The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.
THOMAS MERTON

Avoid Beginning End Hurt Philosophy Suffering Try Yourself
In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.
THOMAS MERTON

Experience God Silence

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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