Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
God, have mercy on me in the blindness in which I hope I am seeking You! — 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
In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love in fact is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves and not to twist them to fit our own… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves. But a selfish love of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
...love triumphs, at least in this life, not by eliminating evil once for all, but by resisting and overcoming it anew every… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one… — 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 everything. Every… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The gift of love is the gift of the power and capacity to love, and therefore, to give love with full effect… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to 'like' one another. Love governs the will: 'liking' is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To know the Cross is not merely to know our own sufferings. For the Cross is the sign of salvation, and no… — 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 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
“Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) You train your eye and your vision lusts after colour. You train your ear, and you long for… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Our God...is a consuming fire. And if we, by love, become transformed into Him and burn as He burns, His fire will… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“For it is God’s love that warms me in the sun and God’s love that sends the cold rain. It is God’s… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in him and we… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world, and makes us see it, all… — 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
![“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree” quote by Thomas Merton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d5f/thomas-merton-231_consent_a-tree-gives-glory-to-god-by-being-a-tre_2294763.jpg)
