For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk, because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious unity and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Consequently, the truth of God lives in our souls more by the power of superior moral courage than by the light of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The lights of prayer that make us imagine we are beginning to be angels are sometimes only signs that we are finally… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart: eyes that see not by reacting to… — 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
While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point vierge between darkness and light, between being and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The deepest need of our darkness is to comprehend the light which shines in the midst of it.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For the ones who are called saints by human opinion on earth may very well be devils, and their light may very… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Contradictions have always existed in the soul of [individuals]. But it is only when we prefer analysis to silence that they become… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The humble person receives praise the way a clean window takes the light of the sun. The truer and more intense the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Imagination has the creative task of making symbols, joining things together in such a way that they throw new light on each… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance that it dazzles the mind and darkens all its visions of other realities, but… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of… — 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
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Creation was given to people as a clean window through which the light of God could shine into people's souls. Sun and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
As a magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun into a little burning knot of heat that can set fire to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect on me is to live on the doorstep… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in… — 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