True happiness is found in unselfish Love, A love which increases in proportion as it is shared.
Interpretation
True happiness comes from selfless love that grows when shared with others.
This quote by Thomas Merton emphasizes that genuine joy is rooted in selfless love. It suggests that happiness multiplies when we give love to others, indicating that the act of sharing our affection enhances both our own happiness and that of those around us.
In practice
During a wedding speech, to highlight the importance of love in a relationship.
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.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
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.
I feel that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works.
God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. The answer to religious complacency isn't working harder at a list of do's and don'ts-it's falling in love with God.
... and through it all and afterwards they would be together, making their own world where nothing mattered but the things they could give to one another, the loveliness, the silence, and the peace.
Gather therefore the Rose, whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age, that will her pride deflower: Gather the Rose of love, whilst yet is time.
The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love.
To love oneself is to love life. It is essential to understand that we make ourselves happy in making others happy.
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