I can depend less and less on my own power and sense of direction...It is so strange to advance backwards and get… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Since no man ever can, or could, live by himself and for himself alone, the destinies of thousands of other people were… — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but… — 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 have my own way to walk and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
My own personal task is not simply that of poet and writer (still less commentator, pseudo-prophet); it is basically to praise God… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
But there is no substance under the things I have gathered together about me. I am hollow, and my structure of pleasures… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I consider myself a saint? How can I consider myself a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
O God, teach me to be satisfied with my own helplessness in the spiritual life. Teach me to be content with Your… — 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
