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
“It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. In order to settle… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“and burdens of mature life, when they became aware of their own weakness, they lost their peace, they let go of their… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Many of our most cherished plans for the glory of God are only inordinate passion in disguise. And the proof of this… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Is it any wonder that there can be no peace in a world where everything possible is done to guarantee that the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To be alone by being part of the universe-fitting in completely to an environment of woods and silence and peace. Everything you… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Solitude means withdrawal from an artificial and fictional level of being which men, divided by original sin, have fabricated in order to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. They constantly defile the silence of the forests and the mountains… — thomas merton Copy Share Image
“Action and Non-Action The non-action of the wise man is not inaction. It is not studied. It is not shaken by anything.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The reality that is present to us and in us: call it being...Silence. And the simple fact that by being attentive, by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To become attached to the experience of peace is to threaten the true and essential and vital union of our soul with… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I am against war, against violence, against violent revolution, for peaceful settlement of differences, for nonviolent but nevertheless radical changes. Change is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The peace the world pretends to desire is really no peace at all. To some men, peace merely means the liberty to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist fighting for peace by nonviolent methods most easily succumbs; activism… — 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
