Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Cupidity...takes created things for ends in themselves, which they are not. The will that seeks rest in creatures for their own sake… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
None of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to… — 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
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
It is a kind of pride to insist that none of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
