Quote

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

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Thomas Merton
Age: 53 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 15
Died: 1968
Died: December 10
Autobiographer
Catholic Priest
Essayist
Journalist
Peace Activist
Poet
Theologian
Trappist Cistercian Monk
Writer
Thomas Feverel Merton
Father Louis
Find
Reflection
Imaging
Love
Otherwise
Twist
Fit
Twists
Relation
Reflecting
Image
Twisted
Beginning
Unconditional
Relationship
Perfectly
Spiritual
Spirituality

More quotes by Thomas Merton

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While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance.
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The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole human race with an error that makes all our acts more or less lies against God.
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The only right way: to love and serve the man of the modern world, but not simply to succumb, with him, to all his illusions about the world.
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The grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.
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Humility sets us free to do what is really good, by showing us our illusions and withdrawing our will from what was only an apparent good.
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I am beginning to realize that sanity is no longer a value or an end in itself. The sanity of modern man is about as useful to him as the huge bulk and muscles of the dinosaur. If he were a little less sane, a little more doubtful, a little more aware of his absurdities and contradictions, perhaps there might be a possibility of his surviv
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The real hope is not in something we think we can do, but in God, who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see.
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Be still: There is no longer any need of comment. It was a lucky wind That blew away his halo with his cares, A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.
Thomas Merton
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The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.
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The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.
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To be ordinary is not a choice: It is the usual freedom of men without visions.
Thomas Merton
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The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds
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A man searching for enlightenment is like a man sitting on an Ass in search of an Ass
Thomas Merton
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Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.
Thomas Merton
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We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen.
Thomas Merton
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The only way to make a man worthy of love is by loving him.
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I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening, and get some sense, for a moment, that we are full of paradise without knowing it.
Thomas Merton
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Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.
Thomas Merton
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My spiritual goal is to one day walk into God and disappear.
Thomas Merton
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I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand but it is my shortcut to your soul.
Thomas Merton