It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of… — 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
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk, because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious unity and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) You train your eye and your vision lusts after colour. You train your ear, and you long for… — 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
“I once thought that would be the consummation of all joy—to be united by a bond of love—to be lost in His… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Our God...is a consuming fire. And if we, by love, become transformed into Him and burn as He burns, His fire will… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for spiritual joy. And… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
See, see Who God is, see the glory of God, going up to Him out of this incomprehensible and infinite Sacrifice in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Ash Wednesday is full of joy...The source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The world of men has forgotten the joys of silence, the peace of solitude, which is necessary, to some extent, for the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
This is the crucifixion of Christ: in which He dies again and again in the individuals who were made to share the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
You are certainly one of the joys of life for all who have ever come within a mile of you. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if… — 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
Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a… — 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
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
To be truly Catholic is not merely to be correct according to an abstractly universal standard of truth, but also and above… — 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
