The art of our time, sacred art included, will necessarily be characterized by a certain poverty, grimness and roughness which correspond to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat?… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it from the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known… — 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
“The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Every moment and every event of everyman's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success, and they are in such a hurry to get it that… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The imagination should be allowed a certain amount of time to browse around. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a… — 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
