Will

“THE theology of the devil is really not theology but magic. “Faith” in this theology is really not the acceptance of a God Who reveals Himself as mercy. It is a psychological, subjective “force” which applies a kind of violence to reality in order to change it according to one’s own whims.”
― Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

“[Existential dread] is the profound awareness that one is capable of ultimate bad faith with himself and with others: that one is living a lie.”
― Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer

“No age lives entirely alone; every civilisation is formed not merely by its own achievements but by what it has inherited from the past."
— British Major Ronald Balfour of the Monuments Men”
― Robert M. Edsel, The Greatest Treasure Hunt in History: The Story of the Monuments Men

“If you are striving to be perfect and pure, everything depends on getting the right idea of what absolute purity and perfection mean. We tend to get trapped in the idea of a static perfection that leads to rigid perfectionism. Abstract speculation can create an image of God that is foreign to the human heart. On the level of religious doctrine, it's a God that is totally purged of anything that we call dark. Then we try to live up to the standards of a God that is purely light and we can't handle the darkness within us. And because we can't handle it, we suppress it. But the more we suppress it, the more it leads its own life, because it's not integrated. Before we know it, we are in serious trouble.”
― Brother David Steindl-Rast