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?
THOMAS MERTONA life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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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 -
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.
THOMAS MERTON -
I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity. I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.
THOMAS MERTON -
A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.
THOMAS MERTON -
The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 MERTON -
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 -
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.
THOMAS MERTON