Every moment and every event of every mans life on earth plants something in his soul. — 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
There is not true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
You pray best when the mirror of your soul is empty of every image except the Image of the Invisible Father. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ. — 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
Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the… — 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
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by… — 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
The importance of detachment from things, the importance of poverty, is that we are supposed to be free from things that we… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and… — 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
“Is it any wonder that there can be no peace in a world where everything possible is done to guarantee that the… — 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
“Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for spiritual joy. And… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I consider myself a saint? How can I consider myself a… — 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
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
The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in… — 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
“Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Justify my soul, O God, but also from Your fountains fill my will with fire. Shine in my mind, although perhaps this… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
And it is in this darkness, when there is nothing left in us that can please or comfort our own minds, when… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Technology is not in itself opposed to spirituality and to religion. But it presents a great temptation. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To become attached to the experience of peace is to threaten the true and essential and vital union of our soul with… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The simplest and most effective way to sanctity is to disappear into the background of ordinary every day routine. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself. — 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
There is a subtle but inescapable connection between the "sacred" attitude and the acceptance of one's in most self. — 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
God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of him. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The only true liberty is in the service of that which is beyond all limits, beyond all definitions, beyond all human appreciation:… — 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
