All men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole human race with… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect on me is to live on the doorstep… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What is 'grace'? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
And it is in this darkness, when there is nothing left in us that can please or comfort our own minds, when… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“One of the effects of original sin is an instinctive prejudice in favour of our own selfish desires. We see things as… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“We are not only contingent beings, dependent on the love and will of a Creator whom we cannot know experientially except in… — 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
