... but any fool knows that you don't need money to get enjoyment out of life. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love, in fact, is the spiritual life; and without it, all other exercises of the spirit are emptied of content. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless, than one that always verges on despair. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love in fact is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Ask me not where I live or what I like to eat . . . Ask me what I am living for… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The man who lives in division is living in death. He cannot find himself because he is lost; he has ceased to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Is it any wonder that there can be no peace in a world where everything possible is done to guarantee that the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To enter into the realm of contemplation, one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“I should be able to return to solitude each time as to the place I have never described to anybody, as the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
But it certainly is a wonderful thing to wake up suddenly in the solitude of the woods and look up at the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence. To allow oneself to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“There is a 'movement' of meditation, expressing the basic 'paschal' rhythm of the Christian life, the passage from death to life in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis but first of all by living.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Ultimately the only way that I can be myself is to become identified with Him in Whom is hidden the reason and… — 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
![“We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!” quote by Thomas Merton](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/cec/thomas-merton-231_beginners_we-do-not-want-to-be-beginners-at-prayer_583117.jpg)
