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
The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The… — 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… — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“No matter how much the original Rule of St. Francis has changed, I think his spirit and his inspiration are still the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The meaning of life is found in openness to being and "being present" in full awareness. — 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
If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. — 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
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
“Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world, and makes us see it, all… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity… — 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
For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless, than one that always verges on despair. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“When Life was Full In the age when life on earth was full, no one paid any special attention to worthy men,… — 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
“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 whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all… — 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
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
“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
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