Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. The mind that responds to the intellectual and spiritual values that lie hidden in a poem, a painting, or a piece of music, discovers a spiritual vitality that lifts it above itself, takes it out of itself, and makes it present to itself on a level of being that it did not know it could ever achieve. Thomas Merton
About This Quote

Art is the process of self-discovery. When we read a piece of art, we are able to find out who we are at our core. We are able to see things in us that we did not know existed. Art, especially visual art, gives us an opportunity to find ourselves in the characters and settings of the art.

We make associations with the art that allow us to see ourselves in the characters. Art helps us discover our strengths and weaknesses, and when we do, it allows us to change for the better.

Source: No Man Is An Island

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More Quotes By Thomas Merton
  1. The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then...

  2. Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.

  3. 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 am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully...

  4. If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.

  5. To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it...

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