Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Those who think they 'know' from the beginning will never in fact come to know anything. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is not true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves. But a selfish love of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us. But we make ourselves… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The man of faith who has never experienced doubt is not a man of faith. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The imagination should be allowed a certain amount of time to browse around. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to "like" one another. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Do not be one of those who, rather than risk failure, never attempts anything. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with an ingot of red -hot iron: I have to pick up the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance to a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs gestated in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
Things that are good are good, and if one is responding to that goodness one is in contact with a truth from which one… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
“The wisdom of the flesh is a judgement that the ordinary ends of our natural appetites are the goods to which the whole of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
“Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and fruitful silence… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
