We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Weaknesses and deficiencies . . . play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth, a… — 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
“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
