Light Quotes by Thomas Merton

Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.

— Thomas Merton

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep…

— Thomas Merton

The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and…

— Thomas Merton

“The deepest need of our darkness is to comprehend the light which shines in the midst of it.”

— Thomas Merton

For the ones who are called saints by human opinion on earth may very well be devils, and their light may very…

— Thomas Merton

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness.

— Thomas Merton

While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance.

— Thomas Merton

For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point vierge between darkness and light, between being and…

— Thomas Merton

Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will…

— Thomas Merton

Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance that it dazzles the mind and darkens all its visions of other realities, but…

— Thomas Merton

We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of…

— Thomas Merton

The humble person receives praise the way a clean window takes the light of the sun. The truer and more intense the…

— Thomas Merton

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect on me is to live on the doorstep…

— Thomas Merton

Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart: eyes that see not by reacting to…

— Thomas Merton

Imagination has the creative task of making symbols, joining things together in such a way that they throw new light on each…

— Thomas Merton

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious unity and…

— Thomas Merton

Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age…

— Thomas Merton

The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in…

— Thomas Merton

Contradictions have always existed in the soul of [individuals]. But it is only when we prefer analysis to silence that they become…

— Thomas Merton

Consequently, the truth of God lives in our souls more by the power of superior moral courage than by the light of…

— Thomas Merton

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

The lights of prayer that make us imagine we are beginning to be angels are sometimes only signs that we are finally…

— Thomas Merton

As a magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun into a little burning knot of heat that can set fire to…

— Thomas Merton

We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness.…

— Thomas Merton

The only influence that can really upset the injustice and iniquity of men is the power that breathes in the Christian tradition,…

— Thomas Merton

In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of…

— Thomas Merton

I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process.…

— Thomas Merton

Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the…

— Thomas Merton

The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can…

— Thomas Merton

For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk, because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring…

— Thomas Merton

“...only God's truth without limit, without defect, without stain. This clean light, which tastes of Paradise, is beyond all pride, beyond comment,…

— Thomas Merton