Prayer Quotes by Thomas Merton

To worship our false selves is to worship nothing. And the worship of nothing is hell.

— Thomas Merton

Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone.

— Thomas Merton

If you have never had any distractions you don't know how to pray.

— Thomas Merton

Prayer is an expression of who we are...We are a living incompleteness. We are a gap, an emptiness that calls for fulfillment.

— Thomas Merton

My God, I pray better to you by breathing. I pray better to you by walking than by talking.

— Thomas Merton

The sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all…

— Thomas Merton

Prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him...who loves us, who is near…

— Thomas Merton

Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone.

— Thomas Merton

You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace…

— Thomas Merton

Every man becomes the image of the God he adores. He whose worship is directed to a dead thing becomes dead. He…

— Thomas Merton

We do not pray for the sake of praying, but for the sake of being heard. We do not pray in order…

— Thomas Merton

The true contemplative is one who has discovered the art of finding leisure even in the midst of his work, by working…

— Thomas Merton

We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else…

— Thomas Merton

We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be…

— Thomas Merton

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

What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we…

— Thomas Merton

“Far from ruining the purity of solitary prayer, petition guards and preserves that purity. The solitary, more than anyone else, is always…

— Thomas Merton

When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of…

— Thomas Merton

The lights of prayer that make us imagine we are beginning to be angels are sometimes only signs that we are finally…

— Thomas Merton

It's a risky thing to pray and the danger is that our very prayers get between God and us. The great thing…

— Thomas Merton

“We must approach our meditation realizing that 'grace,' 'mercy,' and 'faith' are not permanent inalienable possessions which we gain by our efforts…

— Thomas Merton

“The ever-changing reality in the midst of which we live should awaken us to the possibility of an uninterrupted dialogue with God.…

— Thomas Merton

It is a kind of pride to insist that none of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for…

— Thomas Merton

The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and…

— Thomas Merton

“Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married…

— Thomas Merton

“Hence the aim of meditation, in the context of Christian faith, is not to arrive at an objective and apparently 'scientific' knowledge…

— Thomas Merton

“I once thought that would be the consummation of all joy—to be united by a bond of love—to be lost in His…

— Thomas Merton

“Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world, and makes us see it, all…

— Thomas Merton

“There is a 'movement' of meditation, expressing the basic 'paschal' rhythm of the Christian life, the passage from death to life in…

— Thomas Merton

“I hear You saying to me: "I will give you what you desire. I will lead you into solitude. I will lead…

— Thomas Merton

“Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) You train your eye and your vision lusts after colour. You train your ear, and you long for…

— Thomas Merton

“It does not even seem to enter our minds that there might be some incongruity in praying to the God of peace,…

— Thomas Merton

I myself am part of the weather and part of the climate and part of the place … It is certainly part…

— Thomas Merton

None of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to…

— Thomas Merton

The only thing to seek in contemplative prayer is God; and we seek Him successfully when we realize that we cannot find…

— Thomas Merton

In meditative prayer, one thinks and speaks not only with the mind and lips, but in a certain sense with one's whole…

— Thomas Merton

The whole function of the life of prayer is, then, to enlighten and strengthen our conscience so that it not only knows…

— Thomas Merton