My life is ... a mystery which I do not attempt to really understand, as though 1 were led by the hand… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I had refused to pay any attention to the moral laws upon which all our vitality and sanity depend: and so now… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Creation was given to people as a clean window through which the light of God could shine into people's souls. Sun and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
And it is in this darkness, when there is nothing left in us that can please or comfort our own minds, when… — 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
