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
When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In general, it can be said that no contemplative life is possible without ascetic self-discipline. One must learn to survive without the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals, although those things are good… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Modern man believes he is fruitful and productive when his ego is aggressively affirmed, when he is visibly active, and when his… — 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
Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The psychological impotence of our enraged generation must be traced to the overwhelming accusation of insincerity which every man and woman has… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
a man can radically change his life and attain to a deeper meaning, a more perfect integration, a more complete fulfillment, a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
They were in the world and not of it--not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is both dangerous and easy to hate man as he is because he is not what he ought to be. If… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The only right way: to love and serve the man of the modern world, but not simply to succumb, with him, 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
