It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.
THOMAS MERTONThe beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.
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May God prevent us from becoming “right-thinking men”-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.
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When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.
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What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?
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Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.
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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.
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Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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For although God is right with us and in us and out of us and all through us, we have to go on journeys to find him.
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For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air.
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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 greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds.
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How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?
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Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
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A faith that is afraid of other people is no faith at all.
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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.
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We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.
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A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.
THOMAS MERTON