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
Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love is not a mere emotion or sentiment. It is the lucid and ardent responses of the whole person to a value… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with a red hot iron. I have to pick up the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
This act of total surrender is not merely a fantastic intellectual and mystical gamble; it is something much more serious. It is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Before we can realize who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person we think we are,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Contemplation is not and cannot be a function of this external self. There is an irreducible opposition between the deep transcendent self… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false Self. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Solitude is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient solitude to develop the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The humble person receives praise the way a clean window takes the light of the sun. The truer and more intense the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin… — 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
To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The world of men has forgotten the joys of silence, the peace of solitude, which is necessary, to some extent, for the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The man who lives in division is living in death. He cannot find himself because he is lost; he has ceased to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Before we can become who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person who we think we… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect on me is to live on the doorstep… — 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
