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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

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?
THOMAS MERTON

Moon Ourselves Separate Travel
Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.
THOMAS MERTON

Generosity Impossible Love Philosophy Quite Satisfaction Wisdom Yourself
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.
THOMAS MERTON

Connection Food Growth Moments Ourselves Pieces Relationship Spiritual World
Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.
THOMAS MERTON

Gratitude Respond Wake Up Wonder
Weaknesses and deficiencies play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.
THOMAS MERTON

Himself Important Live Need Play Role Weakness
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.
THOMAS MERTON

Beginning Image Love Ourselves Perfection Reflection
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
Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Capacity Fear Heart Love Ourselves Power
May God prevent us from becoming “right-thinking men”-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.
THOMAS MERTON

God Man Ourselves Perfection Right Thinking Vice
‎Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
THOMAS MERTON

Job Love Ourselves Stop Worth
We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have – for their usefulness.
THOMAS MERTON

Imagination Man Obsession Result Time Value Worth
The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
THOMAS MERTON

Compassionate Ideas Interdependent Live Oneself
We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.
THOMAS MERTON

Achievement Greatness Lose Success
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
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
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

Anxiety Force Ourselves Time Willing

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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