The world is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The only influence that can really upset the injustice and iniquity of men is the power that breathes in the Christian tradition,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“We know by fresh discovery, the deep reality that is our concrete existence here and now and in the depths of that… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind… — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb… — 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
Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace. — 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
We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
God must be allowed the right to speak unpredictably.... We must find him in our enemy, or we may lose him even… — 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
Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. — 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
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove… — 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
Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by… — 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
In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for 'finding himself.' If he persists in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God. — 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
