99 result(s) for Thomas Merton Quotes.
"Happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony."
"Do not be too quick to interpret the moment. Just keep quiet. My interpretation is different from yours. That's natural. We don't have to agree about everything. The main thing is to talk these matters over and ponder them in our hearts."
"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another."
"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."
"Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him."
"The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice, but will not listen to other men."
"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."
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"To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything."
"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth."
"The most wonderful of all things in life is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a growing depth, beauty and joy as the years increase."
"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 that have chilled his faith."
"Everyone has an instinct to praise, if only the instinct would be unraveled, we would be opened to the mystery of God!"
"If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for."
"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."
"The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept."
"To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."
"Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience."
"A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live."
"We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true."
"The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral—a dwelling for an immortal soul."
"You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope."
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"Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves."
"We are living, indeed, in a world gone mad, a world where the inside is the outside, where motive is the most obvious thing about us, where fear is an unrecognized intruder on every day’s conversation."
"What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless but disastrous."
"The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods."
"Every moment and every event of every person's life on earth plants something in their soul."
"The fact remains that the human race was created on the sixth day along with the beasts of the earth; in the eyes of the Universe, this means nothing at all."
"Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt."
"Do not depend on the hope of results. When you depend on the hope of results, you stop being present and you stop living."
"The beginning of the fight is the separation of words and deeds."
"Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it."
"Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls."
"Art is the obvious illumination of a spiritual path."
"In prayer, one must hold fast and never let go, and be prepared to wait any amount of time, and to be helped in any way that God wills."
"The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small."
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"Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is simply an awareness of perfect oneness."
"There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, an energy that does not arise and go away but sleeps and wakes like a vast and vivacious serenity."
"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."
"Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward."
"The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be alone with the alone, learns to enjoy true solitude in the company of the perfect companionship of the Holy Spirit."
"Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity."
"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony."
"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy."
"Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God."
"Perhaps I am stronger than I think."
"Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time."
"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real."
"The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt."
"I have discovered that I can't find myself in myself, but only in another."
"We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being."
"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you."
"By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet."
"The philosophy of the common man is an old wife that gives him no pleasure, yet he cannot live without her, and resents any aspersions that strangers may cast upon her character."
"Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt."
"The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me."
"The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little."
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."
"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another."
"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm, and harmony."
"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."
"Do not depend on the hope of results. Concentrate on the value of the action itself."
"Art is the inarticulate imitation of reality."
"If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for."
"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy if anything can."
"The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God’s mercy to me."
"To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything."
"The gate of heaven is everywhere."
"Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers."
"Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love."
"We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time."
"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul."
"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business."
"The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another."
"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image."
"The beginning of love is the ultimate letting go of what we know."
"The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds."
"In silence we find a new sense of how to live."
"You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope."
"To be a saint is to be myself. Therefore, the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and discovering my true self."
"The soul is a stranger in the world. We have to go there to meet the Lord."
"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with another."
"The mind is like a room of glass, open to all the sights, sounds, and influences of the world."
"We must make a place in our hearts for all the places that are far away."
"There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers."
"The contemplative moment is the moment of free creativity. It is the moment of being wholly involved in the present."
"The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image."
"If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell."
"In a word, it is a question of the existence of life in the world, not only for mankind but for all living beings."
"A menacing greatness is in your hands, the greatness that comes from love."
"Our real problem is not our relationships with others. Our real problem is our relationship with ourselves."
"Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice."
"We ought to see the world as a great beauty and a great gift before God."
"The shape of my heart is a call to the depths of human experience."
"The world’s greatest comfort is to learn that there are other people who share the same struggles."
"Each one of us is a world, and has a world in him."
"God is not a being, nor is He an idea, but rather the source of all existence."
"Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived."
"The only way to find love is to see that the whole world is created out of love."
"We are all given the freedom to act as we choose in terms of our moral response."
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