Monday, June 6, 2011

Thomas Merton on "Living Well"

To live well myself is my first and essential contribution to the well-being of all mankind and to the fulfillment of man's collective destiny. If I do not live happily myself how can I help anyone else to be happy, or free, or wise? Yet to seek happiness is not to live happily. Perhaps it is more true to say that one finds happiness by not seeking it. The wisdom that teaches us deliberately to restrain our desire for happiness enables us to discover that we are already happy without realizing the fact.

Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Image) 95.
Posted by at

2 comments:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)