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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.

Thomas Merton

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

Destiny Fulfill God Necessary Oneself Willing
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

Acceptance Desire Generosity Goodness Greatness Life Live Love Ourselves Self Love
Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.
THOMAS MERTON

Gratitude Respond Wake Up Wonder
Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.
THOMAS MERTON

Beginning Creation Difference Happiness Joy Live Philosophy Yourself
Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
THOMAS MERTON

Humility Pride Reality
You are made in the image of what you desire.
THOMAS MERTON

Build Desire Image Yourself
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.
THOMAS MERTON

Alone Destiny Life Love Ourselves True
Our real journey in life is interior.
THOMAS MERTON

Journey Life Ourselves Reality
Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Capacity Fear Heart Love Ourselves Power
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.
THOMAS MERTON

Compassionate Interdependent Philosophy
‎Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
THOMAS MERTON

Job Love Ourselves Stop Worth
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
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

Imagination Man Obsession Result Time Value Worth
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
May God prevent us from becoming “right-thinking men”-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.
THOMAS MERTON

God Man Ourselves Perfection Right Thinking Vice
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Beginning Love Perfection 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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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