One might say I have decided to marry the silence of the forest. The sweet dark warmth of the whole world will… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Christ is born to us today, in order that he may appear to the whole world through us. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The world is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The only right way: to love and serve the man of the modern world, but not simply to succumb, with him, to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The whole world has risen in Christ... If God is 'all in all,' then everything is in fact paradise, because it is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
On the last day of January 1915, in the second year of the Great War, down in the shadow of some French… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat?… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or 'fight for.' It is indeed 'fighting for peace' that starts all… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
God has left sin in the world in order that there may be forgiveness: not only the secret forgiveness by which He… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again, "Solitude, solitude."… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Life consists in learning to live on one's own, spontaneous, freewheeling: to do this one must recognize what is one's own-be familiar… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I believe we are going to have to prepare ourselves for the difficult and patient task of outgrowing rigid and intransigent nationalism,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as… — 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
By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The evil in the world is all of our own making, and it proceeds entirely from our ruthless, senseless, wasteful, destructive, and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
They were in the world and not of it--not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists.… — 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
What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of… — 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
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
Our thought should not merely be an answer to what someone else has just said. Or what someone else might have said.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. God manifests Himself… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is true that neither the ancient wisdoms nor the modern sciences are complete in themselves. They do not stand alone. They… — 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
