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Time Quotes by Thomas Merton

41 Time quotes by Thomas Merton

All Time quotes Thomas Merton’s page

Thomas Merton suggests that doing fewer things well is better than hurrying through many. He writes that our thoughts can become a tangled mess that needs clearing for a calm mind. He also believes art lets us discover who we are while letting go of old labels.

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Take more time, cover less ground.

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When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time,…

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“Art enables us to find ourselves and loose ourselves at the same time.”

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Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace.

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Every moment and every event of every mans life on earth plants something in his soul.

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We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known…

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The imagination should be allowed a certain amount of time to browse around.

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The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds

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Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.

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We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are…

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I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening,…

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From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat?…

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Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you…

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For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point vierge between darkness and light, between being and…

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“I should be able to return to solitude each time as to the place I have never described to anybody, as the…

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Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only…

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Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a…

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Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals,…

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“Mere sitting at home and meditating on the divine presence is not enough for our time. We have to come to the…

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We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. God manifests Himself…

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If we live with possibilities we are exiles from the present which is given us by God to be our own, homeless…

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“Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries…

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Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a…

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The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it from the…

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“The Desert Fathers believed that the wilderness had been created supremely valuable in the eyes of God precisely because it had no…

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“For it had become evident to me that I was a great rebel. I fancied that I had suddenly risen above all…

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“Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) Too much pleasure? Yang has too much influence. Too much suffering? Yin has too much influence. When one…

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When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove…

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We must slow down to a human tempo and we’ll begin to have time to listen.

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Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in…

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“We have what we seek. We don't have to rush after it. It was there all the time, and if we give…

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“A man becomes a solitary at the moment when, no matter what may be his external surroundings, he is suddenly aware of…

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Every moment and every event of everyman's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands…

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You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to…

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Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success, and they are in such a hurry to get it that…

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“This time is given to me by God that I may live in it. It is not given to make something out…

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What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we…

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Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by…

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To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself…

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The art of our time, sacred art included, will necessarily be characterized by a certain poverty, grimness and roughness which correspond to…

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More by Thomas Merton

“Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude…

If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must…

It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is…

We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human…

The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with an ingot of red -hot iron: I have to pick up the…

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance to a…

The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of…

Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs gestated in…

Things that are good are good, and if one is responding to that goodness one is in contact with a truth from which one…

Love winter when the plant says nothing.

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of…

“The wisdom of the flesh is a judgement that the ordinary ends of our natural appetites are the goods to which the whole of…

I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not…

If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and…

“Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and fruitful silence…