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You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

Thomas Merton

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
‎Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
THOMAS MERTON

Job Love Ourselves Stop Worth
Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.
THOMAS MERTON

Alive Beautiful Ordinary See
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 MERTON

Existence God Identity Image Love Myself Name Reason True
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
THOMAS MERTON

Eat Hairs Identity Live Myself
We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.
THOMAS MERTON

Achievement Greatness Lose Success
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
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Beginning Love Perfection Willing
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
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

Achievement Hope Ourselves Perfection Walk
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
Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.
THOMAS MERTON

Death Disturb Philosophy Violence
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
Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.
THOMAS MERTON

Eyes God Goodness Happiness Heart Joy Peace
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
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

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

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You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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