The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
...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
To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in… — 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
We refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves and not to twist them to fit our own… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Our happiness consists in sharing the happiness of God, the perfection of His unlimited freedom, the perfection of His love. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To know the Cross is not merely to know our own sufferings. For the Cross is the sign of salvation, and no… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
This act of total surrender is not merely a fantastic intellectual and mystical gamble; it is something much more serious. It is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If there is no silence beyond and within the many words of doctrine, there is no religion, only a religious ideology. For… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
His justice is the love that gives to each one of His creatures the gifts that His mercy has previously decreed. And… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“God bridges the infinite distances between Himself and the spirits created to love Him, by supernatural missions of His own life. The… — 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
We do not exist for ourselves alone, and it is only when we are fully convinced of this fact that we begin… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love is not a mere emotion or sentiment. It is the lucid and ardent responses of the whole person to a value… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
O love-why can't you leave me alone? Which is a rhetorical question meaning: for heaven's sake, don't. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
But precisely this illusion that everything is "clear" is what is blinding us all. It is a serious temptation, and it is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love is...like a spring coming up out of the ground of our own depths. "I am gift." All that I am is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The married man and the mother of a Christian family, if they are faithful to their obligations, will fulfill a mission that… — 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
![“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree” quote by Thomas Merton](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/d5f/thomas-merton-231_consent_a-tree-gives-glory-to-god-by-being-a-tre_2294763.jpg)
