The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with an ingot of red -hot iron: I have to pick… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact pleases You.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with a red hot iron. I have to pick up the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The earthly desires men cherish are shadows. There is no true happiness in fulfilling them. Why, then, do we continue to pursue… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Do not desire chiefly to be cherished and consoled by God; desire above all to love Him. Do not anxiously desire to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The secret of my full identity is hidden in Him. He alone can make me who I am, or rather who I… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Since no man ever can, or could, live by himself and for himself alone, the destinies of thousands of other people were… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is not merely our own desire but the desire of Christ in His Spirit that drives us to grow in love.… — 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
I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude-to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To desire Him to be merciful to us is to acknowledge Him as God. To seek His pity when we deserve no… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Everybody has an instinctive desire to do good things and avoid evil. But that desire is sterile as long as we have… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that… — 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
