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.
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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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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Before we can realize who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger.
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When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.
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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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Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.
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In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.
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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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You are made in the image of what you desire.
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What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?
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A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.
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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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Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.
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If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.
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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.
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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.
THOMAS MERTON