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 MERTONOur job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.
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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.
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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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How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?
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Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.
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Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.
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Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.
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Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.
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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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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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Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.
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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.
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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.
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No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.
THOMAS MERTON