“I have my own way to walk and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To love our nothingness we must love everything in us that the proud man loves when he loves himself. But we must… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
You must realize that it is the ordinary way of God's dealings with us that our ideas do not work out speedily… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The friends of Job appear on the scene as advisers and "consolers," offering Job the fruits of their moral scientia. But when… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We must suffer. Our five sense are dulled by inordinate pleasure. Penance makes them keen, gives them back their natural vitality, and… — 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
