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We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.

Thomas Merton

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
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

Alone Big Enough Happiness Ourselves
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

Beginning Image Love Ourselves Perfection Reflection
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

Change Loyalty Mindset Myself Shadow Sincere Thinking
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
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
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

Best Deep Imitation Ourselves Person Philosophy Stranger Thinking
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
Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.
THOMAS MERTON

Discover Name Philosophy Yourself
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Beginning Love Perfection Willing
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
‎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
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

Belief Humanity Ourselves
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
The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds.
THOMAS MERTON

Emotional Greatness Mental Mindset Need Ourselves Time

We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.

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We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.

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