...love triumphs, at least in this life, not by eliminating evil once for all, but by resisting and overcoming it anew every… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The world of men has forgotten the joys of silence, the peace of solitude, which is necessary, to some extent, for the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it from the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The primordial blessing, 'increase and multiply', has suddenly become a hemorrhage of terror. We are numbered in billions, and massed together, marshalled,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The danger of education, I have found, is that it so easily confuses means with ends. Worse than that, it quite easily… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The whole function of the life of prayer is, then, to enlighten and strengthen our conscience so that it not only knows… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“My chief care should not be to find pleasure or success, health or life or money or rest or even things like… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The Active Life If an expert does not have some problem to vex him, he is unhappy! If a philosopher's teaching is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Thinking about monastic ideals is not the same as living up to them, but at any rate such thinking has an important… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Are they moved by a sense of human need for silence, for reflection, for inner seeking? So they want to get away… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
O God, teach me to be satisfied with my own helplessness in the spiritual life. Teach me to be content with Your… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In general, it can be said that no contemplative life is possible without ascetic self-discipline. One must learn to survive without the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
a man can radically change his life and attain to a deeper meaning, a more perfect integration, a more complete fulfillment, a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There are days when I am convinced that Heaven starts already, now, in this ordinary life just as it is, in all… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Living is not thinking. Thought is formed and guided by objective reality outside us. Living is the constant adjustment of thought to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for 'finding himself.' If he persists in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“In all the situations of life the “will of God” comes to us not merely as an external dictate of impersonal law… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Faith is the door to the full inner life of the Church, a life which includes not only access to an authoritative… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every moment and every event of everyman's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous… — 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
