Thomas Merton Quotes

People who know me know that I'm the last person on earth that wants to be somebody else.

I've learned that all you can be in this world is you. No matter how much you mess with yourself, with surgery or you know, clothes or cut your hair differently or how much you wish and pray and dream that you're gonna wake up as someone else, it's never gonna happen. You have one life and one opportunity, and all you can be is the best you.

Live your life so that if someone says 'Be yourself' it's good advice.

I never had time to dream about being anyone else.

I don't know what else I would be if I wasn't me. I am not looking from the outside, looking back. I am who I am.

I wanted to do things that I knew were going to be me.

I'm undeniably myself, and I think realizing that is the way to live life.

I don't want to be someone else.

I always have to be me.

At the end of the day, l just want to be myself. I don't set out to be like anyone else.

The Bhagavad Gita—that ancient Indian Yogic text—says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly.

You can spend time self-identifying and figuring out what you are on that, but at some point, you just want to be who you are and not walk around telling people.

The first step to becoming what God made you to be is to stop worrying about what others want you to be.

It is finally when you let go of what people expect you to be and people's perceptions of you that you're able to be the version of yourself that you're supposed to be - like in God's eyes. It doesn't matter if you're half crazy, or eccentric, or whatever it is - that you have to be true to who you were born to be.

I cannot say this too strongly: Do not compare yourselves to others. Be true to who you are, and continue to learn with all your might.

Let go of who you think you're supposed to be and embrace who you are.

Just as cherry, plum, peach and damson blossoms all possess their own unique qualities, each person is unique. We cannot become someone else. The important thing is that we live true to ourselves and cause the great flower of our lives to blossom.

No matter where you go, you are what you are playa.

The best thing you have to offer the world is yourself. You don't have to copy anyone else. If you do, you're second best. To achieve success is to be first, and that's being yourself.

Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?

Don't ever become so preoccupied by who you want to be that you forget to be who you are.

There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me.

Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already posses.

Who would you be but who you are?

The greatest discovery in life is self-discovery. Until you find yourself you will always be someone else. Become yourself.