We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Indeed, it is a kind of quintessence of pride to hate and fear even the kind and legitimate approval of those who… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The illusion that mechanical progress means human improvement ... alienates us from our own being and our own reality. It is precisely… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The danger of education, I have found, is that it so easily confuses means with ends. Worse than that, it quite easily… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What does it mean to know and experience my own “nothingness?” It is not enough to turn away in disgust from my… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I refuse to be misled by any kind of a mirage about any alleged success of what I write. Those things are… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money. By "they" I mean the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is true to say that for me sanctity consists in being myself and for you sanctity consists of being yourself and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law… — 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
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Life consists in learning to live on one's own, spontaneous, freewheeling: to do this one must recognize what is one's own-be familiar… — 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
For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem… — 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
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
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
In the natural order no matter what ideals may be theoretically possible, most people more or less live for themselves and for… — 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
Everybody has an instinctive desire to do good things and avoid evil. But that desire is sterile as long as we have… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To some men peace merely means the liberty to exploit other people without fear of retaliation or interference. To others peace means… — 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)
