The Way of Chuang Tzu

by Thomas Merton

you cannot tell people to do whatever they want when they don’t even know what they want in the first place!

the idea that one can seriously cultivate his own personal freedom merely by discarding inhibitions and obligations, to live in self-centered spontaneity, results in the complete decay of the true self and of its capacity for freedom.

No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.

Though he did not follow other men in their follies, he did not judge them severely—he knew that he had follies of his own, and had the good sense to accept the fact and enjoy it.