In the end, it's the reality of personal realtionships that save everything. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The whole aim of Zen is not to make foolproof statements about experience, but to come to direct grips with reality without… — 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
There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance that it dazzles the mind and darkens all its visions of other realities, but… — 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
One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist…It… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The art of our time, sacred art included, will necessarily be characterized by a certain poverty, grimness and roughness which correspond to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The basic problem is not political, it is apolitical and human. One of the most important things to do is to keep… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with… — 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
One thing is certain: the humility of faith, if it is followed by the proper consequences-by the acceptance of the work and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of… — 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
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
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
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
... Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The reality that is present to us and in us: call it being...Silence. And the simple fact that by being attentive, by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The illusion that mechanical progress means human improvement ... alienates us from our own being and our own reality. It is precisely… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of… — 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
