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
“In all the situations of life the “will of God” comes to us not merely as an external dictate of impersonal law… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The man who lives in division is living in death. He cannot find himself because he is lost; he has ceased 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
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
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 whole of life is to spiritualize our activities by humility and faith, to silence our nature by charity.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“In actual fact, conventions are the death of real tradition as they are of all real life. They are parasites which attach… — 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
What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Each individual Christian and each new age of the Church has to make this rediscovery, this return to the source of Christian… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it from the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Living is not thinking. Thought is formed and guided by objective reality outside us. Living is the constant adjustment of thought to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries… — 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
Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence. To allow oneself to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“There is a 'movement' of meditation, expressing the basic 'paschal' rhythm of the Christian life, the passage from death to life in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as… — 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
O God, teach me to be satisfied with my own helplessness in the spiritual life. Teach me to be content with 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
