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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

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
Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.
THOMAS MERTON

Act Action Spiritual Way
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

Challenge Courage Faith Hope Moments Need Recognition Yourself
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
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
THOMAS MERTON

Art Lose Ourselves Time
We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.
THOMAS MERTON

Achievement Greatness Lose Success
I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity. I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.
THOMAS MERTON

Conflict Goodness Myself Religion
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
Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s love; every moment of existence is a grace.
THOMAS MERTON

Breathe Existence Gift God Grace Moments
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.
THOMAS MERTON

God Himself Journey Right
When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.
THOMAS MERTON

God Imagination Mindset Nature Reality Silence Tongue Yourself
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
Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.
THOMAS MERTON

Give Up Himself Material Ourselves Surrender
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.
THOMAS MERTON

God Himself Love Prayer
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
The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
THOMAS MERTON

Live Ourselves Purpose

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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