Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For language to have meaning, there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What does it mean to know and experience my own “nothingness?” It is not enough to turn away in disgust from my… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
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
Love is free; it does not depend on the desirability of its object, but loves for love's sake. — 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
The camera does not know what it takes; it captures materials with which you reconstruct, not so much what you saw as… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Nonviolence seeks to ‘win’ not by destroying or even by humiliating the adversary, but by convincing [the adversary] that there is a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our… — 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
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
The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
First, the desert is the country of madness. Second, it is the refuge of the devil, thrown out into the "wilderness of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
... Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I consider myself a saint? How can I consider myself a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process.… — 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
If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a… — 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
![“Nonviolence seeks to ‘win’ not by destroying or even by humiliating the adversary, but by convincing [the adversary] that there is a higher and more certain common good than can be attained by bombs and blood. Nonviolence, ideally speaking, does not try to overcome the adversary by winning over…” quote by Thomas Merton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/2c1/thomas-merton-231_adversaries_nonviolence-seeks-to-win-not-by-destroyi_1276480.jpg)
