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Religion Quotes by Thomas Merton

73 Religion quotes by Thomas Merton

All Religion quotes Thomas Merton’s page

All men who live only according to their five senses seek only pleasure, reputation, and power. Merton’s quotes say a full life needs body, soul, mind, heart, and spirit, and that genuine faith can coexist with healthy doubt. They also warn that technology can tempt us away from deeper spiritual work.

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Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.

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In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.

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If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.

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A faith that is afraid of other people is not faith at all.

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A faith that is afraid of other people is no faith at all.

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Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake.

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Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism.

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You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt.

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The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay.

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Love in fact is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of…

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The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to…

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The Christian life, and especially the contemplative life, is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places.

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The Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the…

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“The whole of life is to spiritualize our activities by humility and faith, to silence our nature by charity.”

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“The religious answer is not really religious if it's not fully real. Evasion is the answer of superstition.”

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“For it seems to me that the first responsibility of a man of faith is to make his faith really part of…

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Consequently, the truth of God lives in our souls more by the power of superior moral courage than by the light of…

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The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a…

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This is the greatest stumbling block in our spiritual discipline, which, in actuality, consists not in getting rid of the self but…

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The true contemplative is one who has discovered the art of finding leisure even in the midst of his work, by working…

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Curiously, the most serious religious people, or the most concerned scholars, those who constantly read the Bible as a matter of professional…

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There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in…

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“Suppose that my "poverty" be a secret hunger for spiritual riches: suppose that by pretending to empty myself, pretending to be silent,…

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For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to…

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We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You…

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“Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married…

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It is not merely our own desire but the desire of Christ in His Spirit that drives us to grow in love.…

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It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of…

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The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a…

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The Bible is not primarily a written or printed text to be scrutinized in private, in a scholar's study or a contemplative…

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“What a revelation it was, to discover so many ordinary people in a place together, more conscious of God than of one…

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Place no hope in the feeling of assurance, in spiritual comfort. You may well have to get along without this. Place no…

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“There are many other escapes from the empirical, external self, which might seem to be, but are not, contemplation. For instance, the…

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“and burdens of mature life, when they became aware of their own weakness, they lost their peace, they let go of their…

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“Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep,…

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“Hence the aim of meditation, in the context of Christian faith, is not to arrive at an objective and apparently 'scientific' knowledge…

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“There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life,…

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“Bodily agitation, then, is an enemy to the spirit. And by agitation I do not necessarily mean exercise or movement. There is…

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“This false “faith” which is what we often live by and which we even come to confuse with our “religion” is subjected…

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“Most of the world is either asleep or dead. The religious people are, for the most part, asleep. The irreligious are dead.…

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More by Thomas Merton

“Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude…

If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must…

It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is…

We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human…

The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with an ingot of red -hot iron: I have to pick up the…

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance to a…

The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of…

Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs gestated in…

Things that are good are good, and if one is responding to that goodness one is in contact with a truth from which one…

Love winter when the plant says nothing.

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of…

“The wisdom of the flesh is a judgement that the ordinary ends of our natural appetites are the goods to which the whole of…

I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not…

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…

“Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and fruitful silence…