« All Self Quotes · Thomas Merton's Page
Self Quotes by Thomas Merton
- Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative…
- The things we really need come to us only as gifts, and in order to receive them as gifts we have to be open. In…
- Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false Self. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the…
- 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…
- God must be allowed the right to speak unpredictably.... We must find him in our enemy, or we may lose him even in our friend.…
- 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…
- After all, what is your personal identity? It is what you really are, your real self. None of us is what he thinks he is,…
- In general, it can be said that no contemplative life is possible without ascetic self-discipline. One must learn to survive without the habit-forming luxuries which…
- The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist....It is a living…
- The true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in…
- 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.
- To worship our false selves is to worship nothing. And the worship of nothing is hell.
- In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your piece…
- I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may meanI myself do not know, but…
- Place no hope in the feeling of assurance, in spiritual comfort. You may well have to get along without this. Place no hope in the…
- For the sinful self is not my real self, it is not the self YOU have wanted for me, only the self that I have…
- What does it mean to know and experience my own “nothingness?” It is not enough to turn away in disgust from my illusions and faults…
- In meditative prayer, one thinks and speaks not only with the mind and lips, but in a certain sense with one's whole being... All good…
- We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.
- Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does…
- Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order…
- To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is…
- For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out…
- Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own…
- Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor…
More Self Quotes
- I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self. — Aristotle
- One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation. — Arthur Ashe
- Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. — Isaac Asimov
- Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self. — Francis of Assisi
- That which has not a real excellency and value in it self, entertains no longer than the giddy Humour which recommended it… — Mary Astell
- Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer; into a selflessness which links us with all humanity. — Nancy Astor
- It's extraordinary how self-obsessed human beings are. The things that people always go on about is, 'tell us about us', 'tell us… — David Attenborough
- Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self. — Wystan Hugh Auden
- Washington is like a self-sealing tank on a military aircraft. When a bullet passes through, it closes up. — Dean Acheson
- A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower… — Marcus Aurelius
- What wild imaginations one forms where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken! — Jane Austen
- We grow older, but we do not change. We become more sophisticated, but at bottom we continue to resemble our young selves,… — Paul Auster