October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“A man becomes a solitary at the moment when, no matter what may be his external surroundings, he is suddenly aware of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every moment and every event of every mans life on earth plants something in his soul. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Art enables us to find ourselves and loose ourselves at the same time.” — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“This time is given to me by God that I may live in it. It is not given to make something out… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. God manifests Himself… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“We have what we seek. We don't have to rush after it. It was there all the time, and if we give… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point vierge between darkness and light, between being and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) Too much pleasure? Yang has too much influence. Too much suffering? Yin has too much influence. When one… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Mere sitting at home and meditating on the divine presence is not enough for our time. We have to come to the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“For it had become evident to me that I was a great rebel. I fancied that I had suddenly risen above all… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We must slow down to a human tempo and we’ll begin to have time to listen. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“I should be able to return to solitude each time as to the place I have never described to anybody, as the… — 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
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If we live with possibilities we are exiles from the present which is given us by God to be our own, homeless… — 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
