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To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

Thomas Merton

What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give to others.
THOMAS MERTON

Acceptance Desire Generosity Goodness Greatness Life Live Love Ourselves Self Love
If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.
THOMAS MERTON

Deep Peace World Yourself
Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.
THOMAS MERTON

Better God Nature Spiritual Tree Wind
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.
THOMAS MERTON

Compassionate Interdependent Philosophy
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
No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.
THOMAS MERTON

Knowledge Man Wisdom Wrong
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
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
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
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
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
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.
THOMAS MERTON

God Himself Ideas Ourselves
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
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
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves.
THOMAS MERTON

Beginning Love Perfection Willing
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
May God prevent us from becoming “right-thinking men”-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.
THOMAS MERTON

God Man Ourselves Perfection Right Thinking Vice
In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.
THOMAS MERTON

Experience God Silence
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
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

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

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To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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