Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“I have my own way to walk and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart: eyes that see not by reacting to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Indeed, it is a kind of quintessence of pride to hate and fear even the kind and legitimate approval of those who… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will… — 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
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
I refuse to be misled by any kind of a mirage about any alleged success of what I write. Those things are… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The artistic experience, at its highest, was actually a natural analogue of mystical experience. It produced a kind of intuitive of perception. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
None of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to… — 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
What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There are crimes which no one would commit as an individual which he willingly and bravely commits when acting in the name… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
That is God's call to us - simply to be people who are content to live close to him and to renew… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is a kind of pride to insist that none of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Because You have called me here not to wear a label by which I can recognize myself and place myself in some… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We assume that others are receiving the kind of appreciation we want for ourselves, and we proceed on the assumption that since… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I stand among you as one who offers a small message of hope. . . there are always people who dare 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
