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The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.

Thomas Merton

A 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.
THOMAS MERTON

Desire End Leadership Life Live Man Philosophy Service Spiritual Yourself
Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s love; every moment of existence is a grace.
THOMAS MERTON

Breathe Existence Gift God Grace Moments
We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.
THOMAS MERTON

Deep God Ourselves Peace Spiritual
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

Generosity Impossible Love Philosophy Quite Satisfaction Wisdom Yourself
A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.
THOMAS MERTON

Bad Failure Greatness Man Success
Our real journey in life is interior; It is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary to respond to that action.
THOMAS MERTON

Action Deep Grace Growth Heart Journey Necessary Reality Respond
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
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
The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
THOMAS MERTON

Live Ourselves Purpose
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
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.
THOMAS MERTON

Art Country Hands Learning Meditation Prayer Ride Work Writing Yourself
Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.
THOMAS MERTON

Act Action Spiritual Way
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
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.
THOMAS MERTON

Embrace Goodness Illusion Ourselves Person Recognition Shadow
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

Live Ourselves Revolution Storm Time Transformation
We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.
THOMAS MERTON

Alone Life Live Ourselves True

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.

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The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.

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