Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.
THOMAS MERTONFrom 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.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads to our transformation.
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The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
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Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.
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Perhaps I am stronger than I think.
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In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.
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The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds.
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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.
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You are made in the image of what you desire.
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The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
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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.
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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.
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A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.
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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.
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Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.
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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