black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.

Thomas Merton

Our 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.
THOMAS MERTON

Business Job Kindness Love Ourselves Stop Worth
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

Challenge Courage Faith Hope Moments Need Recognition Yourself
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
Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.
THOMAS MERTON

Eyes God Goodness Happiness Heart Joy Peace
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
THOMAS MERTON

Eat Hairs Identity Live Myself
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

Live People Reach Success Wall Wrong
Weaknesses and deficiencies play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.
THOMAS MERTON

Himself Important Live Need Play Role Weakness
The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
THOMAS MERTON

Live Ourselves Purpose
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?
THOMAS MERTON

Moon Ourselves Separate Travel
The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.
THOMAS MERTON

Beginning Division Freedom Himself Man Uncomfortable
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

God Imagination Mindset Nature Reality Silence Tongue Yourself
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

Give Up Himself Material Ourselves Surrender
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

Existence God Identity Image Love Myself Name Reason True
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.
THOMAS MERTON

Believe Faith God Man Material Negative Quick
We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.
THOMAS MERTON

Achievement Greatness Lose Success
Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am.
THOMAS MERTON

Ambition Discover Myself Philosophy Result See

A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Thomas Merton Quotes