Meaningful Quotes. Thoughtful Insights. Helpful Tools.
Advanced Search Options

Quotes about Purpose

I don't even need to know precisely what I am doing, except that I am acting for the love of God.
— Thomas Merton
I must become convinced and penetrated by the realization that without my love for them they may perhaps not achieve the things God has willed for them. My
— Thomas Merton
Hope deprives us of everything that is not God, in order that all things may serve their true purpose as means to bring us to God.
— Thomas Merton
Hope deprives us of everything that is not God, in order that all things may serve their true purpose as means to bring us to God. Hope is proportionate to detachment.
— Thomas Merton
I was entering into a moral universe in which I would be related to every other rational being, and in which whole masses of us, as thick as swarming bees, would drag one another along towards some common end of good or evil, peace or war.
— Thomas Merton
The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived. ... If we want to be spiritual, then, let us first of all live our lives. Let us not fear the responsibilities and the inevitable distractions of the work appointed by the will of God.
— Thomas Merton
SIT FINIS LIBRI, NON FINIS QUAERENDI
— Thomas Merton
Free will is not given to us merely as a firework to be shot off into the air. There are some men who seem to think their acts are freer in proportion as they are without purpose, as if a rational purpose imposed some kind of limitation upon us. That is like saying that one is richer if he throws money out the window than if he spends it.
— Thomas Merton
We live as spiritual men when we live as men seeking God.
— Thomas Merton
The requirements of a work to be done can be understood as the will of God. If I am supposed to hoe a garden or make a table, then I will be obeying God if I am true to the task I am performing. To do the work carefully and well, with love and respect for the nature of my task and with due attention to its purpose, is to unite myself to God's will in my work. In this way I become His instrument. He works through me.
— Thomas Merton
Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and fulfillment of my existence.
— Thomas Merton
We believe, not because we want to know, but because we want to be.
— Thomas Merton