Our whole life is a meditation of our last decision - the only decision that matters. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The whole of life is to spiritualize our activities by humility and faith, to silence our nature by charity.” — 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
Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In our creation, God asked a question and in our truly living; God answers the question. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The logic of the poet - that is, the logic of language or the experience itself - develops the way a living… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The Christian life, and especially the contemplative life, is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Prayer is an expression of who we are...We are a living incompleteness. We are a gap, an emptiness that calls for fulfillment. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“What every man looks for in life is his own salvation and the salvation of the men he lives with. By salvation… — 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
Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
By my monastic life and vows I am saying no to all the concentration camps, the aerial bombardments, the staged political trials,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Life consists in learning to live on one's own, spontaneous, freewheeling: to do this one must recognize what is one's own-be familiar… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything He has given us...and He has given us everything. Every… — 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
“Is it any wonder that there can be no peace in a world where everything possible is done to guarantee that the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis, but first of all… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Perfect Joy (excerpts) Is there to be found on earth a fullness of joy, or is there no such thing? . .… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Nothing could be more alien to contemplation than the cogito ergo sum of Descartes. “I think, therefore I am.” This is the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“and burdens of mature life, when they became aware of their own weakness, they lost their peace, they let go of their… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What is 'grace'? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“There was to be nothing special about it, nothing that savored of a religious Order, no special rule, no distinctive habit. She,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Once you have grace," I said to him, "you are free. Without it, you cannot help doing the things you know you… — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every moment and every event of every mans life on earth plants something in his soul. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
... but any fool knows that you don't need money to get enjoyment out of life. — 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
![“We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!” quote by Thomas Merton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/cec/thomas-merton-231_beginners_we-do-not-want-to-be-beginners-at-prayer_583117.jpg)
