01c. 1941 ADFinally, I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
02c. 1941 ADIt is by desiring to grow in love that we receive the Holy Spirit, and the thirst for more charity is the effect of this more abundant reception.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
03c. 1941 ADThe Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the Father gives most easily.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
04c. 1941 ADMy life is ... a mystery which I do not attempt to really understand as though 1 were led by the hand in a night where I see nothing but can fully depend on the love and protection of Him who guides me.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
05c. 1941 ADWe have what we seek. It is there all the time and if we give it time it will make itself known to us.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
06c. 1941 ADWe must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
07c. 1941 ADWe are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to "like" one another.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
08c. 1941 ADI will not fear for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
09c. 1941 ADThe 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.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
11c. 1941 ADThere is not a flower that opens not a seed that falls into the ground and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
12c. 1941 ADViolence is essentially wordless and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
13c. 1941 ADSolitude 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.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
14c. 1941 ADEvery moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
16c. 1941 ADThe 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 / quote ↗
17c. 1941 ADLove 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.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
18c. 1941 ADWhat 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.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
21c. 1941 ADWe are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
22c. 1941 ADOctober is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
23c. 1941 ADThe first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
24c. 1941 ADJust remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.Thomas Merton / quote ↗
