"Stop asking yourself questions that have no meaning. Or if they have, you'll find out when you need to -- find out both the questions and the answers."
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Quote collection
Thomas Merton quotes (page 25 of 31)
608 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Life reveals itself to us only in so far as well live it."
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"The secret of my full identity is hidden in Him. He alone can make me who I am, or rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be. But unless I desire this identity and work to find it with Him and in Him, the work will never be done"
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"Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life."
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"Happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found."
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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."
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"To be alone by being part of the universe-fitting in completely to an environment of woods and silence and peace. Everything you do becomes a unity and a prayer. Unity within and without."
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"Grains of error planted innocently in a well-kept greenhouse can become giant poisonous trees."
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"Therefore, doing the Stations of the Cross was still more laborious than consoling, and required a sacrifice. It was much the same with all my devotions. They did not come easily or spontaneously, and they very seldom brought with them any strong sensible satisfaction. Nevertheless the work of performing them ended in a profound and fortifying peace: a peace that was scarcely perceptible, but which deepened and which, as my passions subsided, became more and more real, more and more sure, and finally stayed with me permanently."
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"God Himself begins to live in me not only as my Creator but as my other and true self."
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"O God, my God, the night has values that the day never dreamed of."
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"A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God."
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"For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious "faith" of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion."
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"To be unknown to God is altogether too much privacy."
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"I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not ask of me."
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"It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else's life? His sanctity will never be yours; you must have the humility to work out your own salvation in a darkness where you are absolutely alone."
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"When you reread your journal you find out that your newest discovery is something you already found out five years ago."
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"Because of their enmity you will be left alone. They will cast you out and forsake you."
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"Contemplation is not and cannot be a function of this external self. There is an irreducible opposition between the deep transcendent self that awakens only in contemplation, and the superficial, external self which we commonly identify with the first person singular."
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"For the ones who are called saints by human opinion on earth may very well be devils, and their light may very well be darkness"
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