To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance… — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If it so happened that I had once written a best-seller, this was a pure accident, due to inattention and naivete, and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Day after day I read Freud, thinking myself to be very enlightened and scientific when, as a matter of fact, I was… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You… — 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… — 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
To those who have no personal experience of this revolutionary aspect of Christian truth, but who see only the outer crust of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I just remember their kindness and goodness to me, and their peacefulness and their utter simplicity. They inspired real reverence, and I… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by nonviolent methods most easily succumbs; activism… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Zen is consciousness unstructured by particular form or particular system, a trans-cultural, trans-religious, transformed consciousness. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself. — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence. To allow oneself to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
But precisely this illusion that everything is "clear" is what is blinding us all. It is a serious temptation, and it is… — 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
