In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The whole of life is to spiritualize our activities by humility and faith, to silence our nature by charity.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The religious answer is not really religious if it's not fully real. Evasion is the answer of superstition.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The Christian life, and especially the contemplative life, is a continual discovery of Christ in new and unexpected places. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love in fact is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace. It can come to us ONLY as a gift, and not… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Curiously, the most serious religious people, or the most concerned scholars, those who constantly read the Bible as a matter of professional… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The true contemplative is one who has discovered the art of finding leisure even in the midst of his work, by working… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
This is the greatest stumbling block in our spiritual discipline, which, in actuality, consists not in getting rid of the self but… — 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
Consequently, the truth of God lives in our souls more by the power of superior moral courage than by the light of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Suppose that my "poverty" be a secret hunger for spiritual riches: suppose that by pretending to empty myself, pretending to be silent,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married… — 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
It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is not merely our own desire but the desire of Christ in His Spirit that drives us to grow in love.… — 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,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“What a revelation it was, to discover so many ordinary people in a place together, more conscious of God than of one… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Place no hope in the feeling of assurance, in spiritual comfort. You may well have to get along without this. Place no… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Hence the aim of meditation, in the context of Christian faith, is not to arrive at an objective and apparently 'scientific' knowledge… — 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,… — 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
“There are many other escapes from the empirical, external self, which might seem to be, but are not, contemplation. For instance, the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Bodily agitation, then, is an enemy to the spirit. And by agitation I do not necessarily mean exercise or movement. There is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“This false “faith” which is what we often live by and which we even come to confuse with our “religion” is subjected… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Most of the world is either asleep or dead. The religious people are, for the most part, asleep. The irreligious are dead.… — 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
