Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs… — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
All men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure… — 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
The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every other man is a piece of myself, for I am a part and a member of mankind. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For power can guarantee the interests of some men but it can never foster the good of man. Power always protects the… — 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
A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity… — 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
It is true that neither the ancient wisdoms nor the modern sciences are complete in themselves. They do not stand alone. They… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To love our nothingness we must love everything in us that the proud man loves when he loves himself. But we must… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city? — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys… — 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
May God prevent us from becoming "right-thinking men"-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that… — 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
