The meaning of life is found in openness to being and "being present" in full awareness. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The danger of education, I have found, is that it so easily confuses means with ends. Worse than that, it quite easily… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Zen enriches no one. There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while in the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
True happiness is not found in any other reward than that of being united with God. If I seek some other reward… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If there was no other proof of the infinite patience of God, a very good one could be found in His toleration… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“No one can find God without having first been found by Him. A monk is a man who seeks God because he… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The only thing to seek in contemplative prayer is God; and we seek Him successfully when we realize that we cannot find… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When you reread your journal you find out that your newest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The land which thou goest to possess is not like the land of Egypt from whence thou camest out... For my thoughts… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We know when we are following our vocation when our soul is set free from preoccupation with itself and is able to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
True happiness is found in unselfish Love, A love which increases in proportion as it is shared. — 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
Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Ultimately faith is the only key to the universe. The final meaning of human existence, and the answers to the questions on… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present… — 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
