It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
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
Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot find Him unless we know we need Him. We forget this need when we take a self-sufficient pleasure in our… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me...you will lead… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
First, the desert is the country of madness. Second, it is the refuge of the devil, thrown out into the "wilderness of… — 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
I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude-to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to… — 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
