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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

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
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
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

Confusion Discipline Fight Love Necessary Peace Philosophy Place Wisdom World
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
Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.
THOMAS MERTON

Death Disturb Philosophy Violence
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 purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.
THOMAS MERTON

Live Ourselves Purpose
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
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.
THOMAS MERTON

Alone Destiny Life Love Ourselves True
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
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
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
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
THOMAS MERTON

Art Lose Ourselves Time
The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
THOMAS MERTON

Compassionate Ideas Interdependent Live Oneself
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
Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.
THOMAS MERTON

Alive Beautiful Ordinary 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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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