FastSaying

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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POPE JOHN PAUL II Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry a...
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POPE JOHN PAUL II Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
POPE JOHN PAUL II An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.
POPE JOHN PAUL II Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it.
POPE JOHN PAUL II The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, on...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressi...
POPE JOHN PAUL II The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not d...
POPE JOHN PAUL II To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the...
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POPE JOHN PAUL II When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law e...
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POPE JOHN PAUL II The future starts today, not tomorrow.
POPE JOHN PAUL II The unworthy successor of Peter who desires to benefit from the immeasurable wealth of Christ feels ...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.
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POPE JOHN PAUL II The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to re...
POPE JOHN PAUL II Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.
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POPE JOHN PAUL II There are people and nations, Mother, that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you...
POPE JOHN PAUL II I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.
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ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH The scars of others should teach us caution.
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SAINT AUGUSTINE The most High approveth not the gifts of the wicked.
SAINT PATRICK I see that already in this present world I am exalted above measure by the Lord. And I was not worth...
SAINT PATRICK He that offereth sacrifice of the goods of the poor is as one that sacrificeth the son in the presen...
SAINT PATRICK I was freeborn according to the flesh; I am born of a father who was a decurion, but I sold my noble...
SAINT PATRICK I have had the good fortune through my God that I should never abandon his people whom I have acquir...
SAINT PATRICK The Lord discovered to me a sense of my unbelief that, though late, I should remember my transgressi...
SAINT PATRICK Let who will scoff and revile - I will not remain silent; neither will I conceal the signs and wonde...
SAINT PATRICK I only seek in my old age to perfect that which I had not before thoroughly learned in my youth, bec...
SAINT PATRICK I have a Creator who knew all things, even before they were made - even me, his poor little child.
SAINT PATRICK I have vowed to my God to teach the heathen, though I be despised by some.
SAINT PATRICK No one should ever say that it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small acco...
SAINT PATRICK The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelieving heart, so that I should recall my sins.
SAINT PATRICK It was not any grace in me, but God that put this earnest care into my heart, that I should be one o...
SAINT PATRICK Sufficient for me is that honour which is not seen of men but is felt in the heart, as faithful is H...
SAINT PATRICK Before I was humiliated I was like a stone that lies in deep mud, and he who is mighty came and in h...
SAINT PATRICK I am Patrick, a sinner, most uncultivated and least of all the faithful and despised in the eyes of ...
SAINT PATRICK The Lord is greater than all: I have said enough.
SAINT PATRICK Among the many signs of a lively faith and hope we have in eternal life, one of the surest is not be...
SAINT IGNATIUS I can love a person in this life only insofar as he tries to advance in the praise and service of Go...
SAINT IGNATIUS Some indeed have tears naturally, when the higher motion of the soul makes itself felt in the lower,...
SAINT IGNATIUS The principal end both of my father and of myself in the conquest of India... has been the propagati...
SAINT IGNATIUS We should love the body insofar as it is obedient and helpful to the soul, since the soul, with the ...
SAINT IGNATIUS We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears white is really black, if the hierar...
SAINT IGNATIUS It is one thing to be eloquent and charming in profane speech, and another when the one speaking as ...
SAINT IGNATIUS Remember that bodily exercise, when it is well ordered, as I have said, is also prayer by means of w...
SAINT IGNATIUS In the light of the Divine Goodness, it seems to me, though others may think differently, that ingra...
SAINT IGNATIUS Occupy yourself in beholding and bewailing your own imperfections rather than contemplating the impe...
SAINT IGNATIUS Be generous to the poor orphans and those in need. The man to whom our Lord has been liberal ought n...
SAINT IGNATIUS Teach us to give and not to count the cost.
SAINT IGNATIUS In the fallen there is danger of pride and vainglory, since they prefer their own judgment to the ju...
SAINT IGNATIUS May God our Lord never let me harm anyone when I cannot help him!
SAINT IGNATIUS True, I am in love with suffering, but I do not know if I deserve the honor.
SAINT IGNATIUS May the perfect grace and eternal love of Christ our Lord be our never-failing protection and help.
SAINT IGNATIUS For those who love, nothing is too difficult, especially when it is done for the love of our Lord Je...
SAINT IGNATIUS If God has given you the world's goods in abundance, it is to help you gain those of Heaven and ...
SAINT IGNATIUS Knowledge is sometimes superfluous: when we need it, we have it not.
SAINT BERNARD For every benefit conferred, God is to be praised in his gifts. Otherwise when the time of judgment ...
SAINT BERNARD Custom turns everything upside down. Give it time, and what can resist its hardening effect? What do...
SAINT BERNARD Charity never lacks what is her own, all that she needs for her own security. Not alone does she hav...
SAINT BERNARD I was made a sinner by deriving my being from Adam; I am made just by being washed in the blood of C...
SAINT BERNARD The impudence of the sinner displeases God as much as the modesty of the penitent gives him pleasure...
SAINT BERNARD A man who prides himself on being better than his fellow-men thinks it a disgrace if he does not do ...
SAINT BERNARD Keep to the middle if you wish to keep moderation. The mid way is the safe way. Moderation abides in...
SAINT BERNARD Humility is a good estate; founded thereon, the whole spiritual edifice grows into a holy temple in ...
SAINT BERNARD That heart alone is hard which does not shudder at itself for not feeling its hardness.
SAINT BERNARD There are people who go clad in tunics and have nothing to do with furs, who nevertheless are lackin...
SAINT BERNARD You wish me to tell you why and how God should be loved. My answer is that God himself is the reason...
SAINT BERNARD I myself, however wretched I may be, have been occasionally privileged to sit at the feet of the Lor...
SAINT BERNARD Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you want is not a sceptre, but a...
SAINT BERNARD Christian, learn from Christ how you ought to love Christ. Learn a love that is tender, wise, strong...
SAINT BERNARD In truth, opinion may be taken for understanding; understanding cannot be taken for opinion. How so?...
SAINT BERNARD Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell al...
SAINT BERNARD God removes the sin of the one who makes humble confession, and thereby the devil loses the sovereig...
SAINT BERNARD We seek for truth in ourselves; in our neighbours, and in its essential nature. We find it first in ...
SAINT BERNARD I believe though I do not comprehend, and I hold by faith what I cannot grasp with the mind.
SAINT BERNARD Among irrational animals the love of the offspring and of the parents for each other is extraordinar...
SAINT BASIL The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no nice enqu...
SAINT BASIL There is nothing unpremeditated, nothing neglected by God. His unsleeping eye beholds all things.
SAINT BASIL We glorify the Holy Ghost together with the Father and the Son, from the conviction that He is not s...
SAINT BASIL We do not accost a physician as we do any mere nobody; nor a magistrate as we do a private individua...
SAINT BASIL Indulging in unrestrained and immoderate laughter is a sign of intemperance, of a want of control ov...
SAINT BASIL

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THOMAS MERTON The deepest of level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless ... beyond...
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THOMAS MERTON If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, b...
THOMAS MERTON Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not w...
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THOMAS MERTON Attachment to spiritual things is.. just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.
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THOMAS MERTON In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for finding h...
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THOMAS MERTON It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others. When...
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THOMAS MERTON My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for c...
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THOMAS MERTON October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go...
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THOMAS MERTON Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.
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THOMAS MERTON Feast of Mary Sumner, Founder of the Mothers' Union, 1921 We must be willing to accept the bitt...
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THOMAS MERTON A daydream is an evasion.
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THOMAS MERTON We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inn...
THOMAS MERTON I was not sure where I was going, and I could not see what I would do when I got [there]. But you sa...
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THOMAS MERTON There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we ar...
THOMAS MERTON Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking abo...
THOMAS MERTON The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But afte...
THOMAS MERTON God, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absen...
THOMAS MERTON Art enables us to find ourselves and loose ourselves at the same time.
THOMAS MERTON One who is content with what he has, and who accepts the fact that he inevitably misses very much in...
THOMAS MERTON Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such wo...
THOMAS MERTON We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to 'like' one another. Love governs th...
THOMAS MERTON Every man becomes the image of the God he adores.
He whose worship is directed to a dead thing ...
THOMAS MERTON A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.
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THOMAS MERTON God does not demand that every man attain to what is theoretically highest and best. It is better to...
THOMAS MERTON For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God'...
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THOMAS MERTON But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet rec...
THOMAS MERTON Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without th...
THOMAS MERTON It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. In ...
THOMAS MERTON The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround ...
THOMAS MERTON To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us e...
THOMAS MERTON Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all i...
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THOMAS MERTON It's not the easiest thing to meet the friends of someone you've fallen in love with...
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THOMAS MERTON Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.
THOMAS MERTON Think of it, all that speech pouring down, selling nothing, judging nobody…What a thing it is to s...
THOMAS MERTON Life is this simple: We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining thro...
THOMAS MERTON Men in bowlers and dark suits with their rolled-up umbrellas. Men full of propriety, calm and proud,...
THOMAS MERTON Technology is not in itself opposed to spirituality and to religion. But it presents a great temptat...
THOMAS MERTON The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me.
THOMAS MERTON In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for ''finding...
THOMAS MERTON In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was sud...
THOMAS MERTON Perhaps I am stronger than I think
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THOMAS MERTON Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.
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THOMAS MERTON We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of men and irrational mania of those who ha...
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THOMAS MERTON Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away ...
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And as each blow was paid with Blood,
Y...
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THOMAS MERTON Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all others.
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THOMAS MERTON We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace ...
THOMAS MERTON The Bible is not primarily a written or printed text to be scrutinized in private, in a scholar's st...
THOMAS MERTON It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spirit...
THOMAS MERTON In this age of crowds in which I have determined to be a solitary, perhaps the greatest sin would be...
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THOMAS MERTON Everyone of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self..We are not very good at recognizing ...
THOMAS MERTON We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in...
THOMAS MERTON The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant thi...
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All the newspapers in the free world explain why...
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THOMAS MERTON Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.
THOMAS MERTON The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole...
THOMAS MERTON If we live with possibilities we are exiles from the present which is given us by God to be our own,...
THOMAS MERTON The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on th...
THOMAS MERTON When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your ti...
THOMAS MERTON I read every book about Buster Keaton and Chaplin to see how they worked - it's all about dedica...
PAUL MERTON There's something magical about film, it's the ultimate for me, because it's kind of per...
PAUL MERTON So everybody has some information. The function of the markets is to aggregate that information, eva...
MERTON MILLER Everyone recognizes that's a joke because obviously the number and shape of the pieces doesn'...
MERTON MILLER I'm always amazed to hear of air crash victims so badly mutilated that they have to be identifie...
PAUL MERTON My school days were the happiest days of my life; which should give you some indication of the miser...
PAUL MERTON As an economics undergraduate, I also worked on a part-time basis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a...
MERTON MILLER You only need to make one big score in finance to be a hero forever.
MERTON MILLER I was trying to organise my DVDs into a sort of chronological order, and I am afraid that it all tra...
PAUL MERTON When I wake up on a Monday morning and I realise I don't have to go and work at the civil servic...
PAUL MERTON If you became a comedian in the '80s, you had to work the circuit and make people laugh. Canned ...
PAUL MERTON When I turned about 12 or 13, I realised that being funny wasn't about remembering jokes. It was...
PAUL MERTON All disc jockeys are without talent. Noel Edmonds - I can't stand Noel Edmonds.
PAUL MERTON Most people might just as well buy a share of the whole market, which pools all the information, tha...
MERTON MILLER When I used to do the Edinburgh Festival, there was a bunch of guys selling fresh oysters and I'...
PAUL MERTON My research interests since then have shifted strongly towards the economic and regulatory problems ...
MERTON MILLER The thing about improvisation is that it's not about what you say. It's listening to what ot...
PAUL MERTON When things are difficult, awful, stressful, the thing that always gets you through is a sense of hu...
PAUL MERTON Beginning with a trip out to Ellis Island, I saw for myself where thousands of European immigrants t...
PAUL MERTON We thought it would have significance for practice but nothing of the magnitude that's occurred over...
ROBERT MERTON