If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk, because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point vierge between darkness and light, between being and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The deepest need of our darkness is to comprehend the light which shines in the midst of it.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To become attached to the experience of peace is to threaten the true and essential and vital union of our soul with… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For the ones who are called saints by human opinion on earth may very well be devils, and their light may very… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It seems to me that the darkness that has troubled you ... comes from one very serious source. Without wanting to be… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not… — 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
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
O God, teach me to be satisfied with my own helplessness in the spiritual life. Teach me to be content with Your… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“If we enter into ourselves, find our true self, and then pass beyond the inner "I", we sail forth into the immense… — 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
The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect 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 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
