The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
THOMAS MERTONInstead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.
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 -
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.
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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 -
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.
THOMAS MERTON -
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 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 -
The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds.
THOMAS MERTON -
It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.
THOMAS MERTON -
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?
THOMAS MERTON -
A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.
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For although God is right with us and in us and out of us and all through us, we have to go on journeys to find him.
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When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.
THOMAS MERTON -
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
THOMAS MERTON






