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 MERTONDo 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.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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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 -
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 artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 -
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 -
Our real journey in life is interior.
THOMAS MERTON -
No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 -
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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Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 -
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