You are made in the image of what you desire.
Interpretation
This quote highlights that our deepest desires shape who we are.
Thomas Merton's quote suggests that our aspirations and what we crave significantly influence our identity and actions. By recognizing that we are shaped by our desires, we are encouraged to evaluate what we truly want in life, as our thoughts and ambitions manifest in our character and choices.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal growth.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.
Authentic power is the energy that Is formed by the intentions of the Soul. It is the light shaped by the intentions of love and compassion guided by wisdom
There are as many opinions as there are experts.
When I was six or seven years old, growing up in Pittsburgh, I used to take a precious penny of my own and hide it for someone else to find. I was greatly excited at the thought of the first lucky passerby who would receive a gift in this way, regardless of merit, a free gift from the universe. . . . I've been thinking about seeing. There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand.
I think you have to be what you are. Don't try to be somebody else. You have to be yourself at all times.
Good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.
Luck, bad if not good, will always be with us. But it has a way of favoring the intelligent and showing its back to the stupid.
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