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
All men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“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
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
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and,… — 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
The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance. — 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
Our God...is a consuming fire. And if we, by love, become transformed into Him and burn as He burns, His fire will… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Good moral actions are not enough. Everything in us, from the very depths, must be cleansed and reordered... — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as… — 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
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
Saints are what they are not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth, a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
But it certainly is a wonderful thing to wake up suddenly in the solitude of the woods and look up at the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If you want to have a spiritual life you must unify your life. A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Life is not accomplishing some special work but attaining to a degree of consciousness and inner freedom which is beyond all works… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The peace produced by grace is a spiritual stability too deep for violence — it is unshakeable — 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
