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The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay.

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
Many
Signs
Decay
Symbols
Spirituality
Modern
Society
Spiritual
Degradation
Sense
Symbol

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This is the greatest stumbling block in our spiritual discipline, which, in actuality, consists not in getting rid of the self but in realizing the fact that there is no such existence from the first.
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One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendour that is all around us.
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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.
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Humble people can do great things with uncommon perfection because they are no longer concerned about their own interests and their own reputation, and therefore they no longer need to waste their efforts in defending them.
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You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace and recollection. You will never be able to pray perfectly until you are detached from the pleasures of prayer.
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A daydream is an evasion.
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Either you look at the universe as a very poor creation out of which no one can make anything, or you look at your own life and your own part in the universe as infinitely rich, full of inexhaustible interest, opening out into the infinite further responsibilities for study and contemplation and interest and praise. Beyond all and in all is God.
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What do you want to want to be, anyway? I don't know I guess what I want to be is a good Catholic. What you should say--he told me--what you should say is that you want to be a saint.
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The truth never becomes clear as long as we assume that each one of us, individually, is the center of the universe.
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A faith that is afraid of other people is no faith at all.
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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.
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When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well.
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The closer we are to God, the closer we are to those who are close to him.
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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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Happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found.
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