A Quote by Thomas Merton

To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor.

Thomas Merton

Quote Topics

Decision Face Free God Love Must Neighbor Oneself Responsibility Serve Spite Terrible To Love Whether

Quote Author

Thomas Merton
American - Author
January 31, 1915 - December 10, 1968

The poet must be free to love or hate as the spirit moves him, free to change, free to be a chameleon, free to be an enfant terrible. He must above all never worry about this effect on other people.

May Sarton

And because God's love is uncoercive and treasures our freedom - if above all he wants us to love him, then we must be left free not to love him - we are free to resist it, deny it, crucify it finally, which we do again and again. This is our terrible freedom, which love refuses to overpower so that, in this, the greatest of all powers, God's power, is itself powerless.

Frederick Buechner

The surest way to determine whether one possesses the love of God is to see whether he or she loves his or her neighbor. These two loves are never separated. Rest assured, the more you progress in love of neighbor the more your love of God will increase.

Teresa of Avila

The unbreakable bond between love of God and love of neighbor is emphasized. One is so closely connected to the other that to say that we love God becomes a lie if we are closed to our neighbor or hate him altogether. Saint John's words should rather be interpreted to mean that love of neighbor is a path that leads to the encounter with God, and that closing our eyes to our neighbor also blinds us to God.

Pope Benedict XVI

Why should we believe in God? — We hate Christianity and Christians. Even the best of them must be regarded as our worst enemies. They preach love of one's neighbor, and pity, which is contrary to our principles. Christian love is a hinderance to the revolution. Down with love of one's neighbor; what we want is hatred.

Gerald Burton Winrod

To love God as He ought to be loved, we must be detached from all temporal love. We must love nothing but Him, or if we love anything else, we must love it only for His sake.

Peter Claver

To love is never just to love since it is also to will to love, and ... to love in spite of oneself, to allow oneself to be overcome by one's love.

Jean-Paul Sartre

To love God and neighbor is not something abstract, but profoundly concrete: it means seeing in every person and face of the Lord to be served, to serve him concretely. And you are, dear brothers and sisters, in the face of Jesus.

Pope Francis

The soul is made of love and must ever strive to return to love. Therefore, it can never find rest nor happiness in other things. It must lose itself in love. By its very nature it must seek God, who is love.

Mechthild of Magdeburg

I happen to think that Jesus was the greatest hero of all time. I don't think you could invent that kind of a hero. He had it all - everything that the human spirit could yearn for. There is nothing that man ever said or did, by word or deed that is evil. That is not full of compassion. That is not full of love for your neighbor whether he's down or out, or up - no matter what. He taught that you must love your neighbor whether he's a crook, a beggar, whether he's rich or poor.

Frank Capra

We must love our neighbor as being made in the image of God and as an object of His love.

Vincent de Paul

Love must be free and must have protection for couples, whether they are same-sex or not, each one loves who they choose and must have protection for their family.

Gloria Trevi

Here was the rub: one must be more zealous to please God than to avoid sin. One must sacrifice oneself utterly to God's purposes, even to the point of possibly making moral mistakes. One's obedience to God must be forward-oriented and zealous and free, and to be a mere moralist or pietist would make such a life impossible.

Eric Metaxas

To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face, one must be able to love the meanest of all creation as oneself.

Mahatma Gandhi

Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bittersweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt and take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.