Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Those who think they 'know' from the beginning will never in fact come to know anything. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“It is therefore of supreme importance that we consent to live not for ourselves but for others. When we do this we… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is not true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to "like" one another. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Do not be one of those who, rather than risk failure, never attempts anything. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I myself am part of the weather and part of the climate and part of the place … It is certainly part… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to… — 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
