I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.
Interpretation
Hope and despair are interconnected, and one cannot understand true hope without experiencing despair.
In this quote, Thomas Merton suggests that the experience of despair is a necessary counterpart to understanding hope. He implies that hope is only meaningful when one has encountered the depths of despair, highlighting the complexity of human emotions and the dual nature of our experiences in life. This insight reflects a deep understanding of the human condition, where the contrast between light and darkness can intensify our appreciation of both.
In practice
In a speech about overcoming challenges, you might use this quote to illustrate the importance of experiencing hardship.
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.
Let the fruition of things bless the possession of them, and take no satisfaction in dying but living rich.
Bear in mind, my children, that only cowards and those who are weak commit sin and tell lies. The brave are always moral. Try to be moral, try to be brave, try to be sympathising.
It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.
My past is everything I failed to be.
The devil and temptations also do give occasion unto us somewhat to learn and understand the Scriptures, by experience and practice. Without trials and temptations we should never understand anything thereof; no, not although we diligently read and heard the same.
Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
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