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 MERTONOthers 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.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.
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Perhaps I am stronger than I think.
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The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
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Our real journey in life is interior.
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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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Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.
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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.
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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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Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.
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The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
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I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity. I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.
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Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.
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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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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.
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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.
THOMAS MERTON






