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
Are they moved by a sense of human need for silence, for reflection, for inner seeking? So they want to get away… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Thinking about monastic ideals is not the same as living up to them, but at any rate such thinking has an important… — 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
The danger of education, I have found, is that it so easily confuses means with ends. Worse than that, it quite easily… — 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
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 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
“I should be able to return to solitude each time as to the place I have never described to anybody, as the… — 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
“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
Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because… — 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
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
Since no man ever can, or could, live by himself and for himself alone, the destinies of thousands of other people were… — 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
“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
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
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
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
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
“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
