If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
And that is why the man who wants to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey. — 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
We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What do you want to want to be, anyway?" "I don't know; I guess what I want to be is a good… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is to mind your own business. Nothing is… — 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
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
The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals, although those things are good… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We assume that others are receiving the kind of appreciation we want for ourselves, and we proceed on the assumption that since… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone, in the forest, at night, cherished by this wonderful, unintelligible, perfectly innocent speech,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Because You have called me here not to wear a label by which I can recognize myself and place myself in some… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence. To allow oneself to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Once you have grace," I said to him, "you are free. Without it, you cannot help doing the things you know you… — 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
For the sinful self is not my real self, it is not the self YOU have wanted for me, only the self… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never be able to write… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Are they moved by a sense of human need for silence, for reflection, for inner seeking? So they want to get away… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Each particular being, in its individuality, its concrete nature and entity, with all its own characteristics and its private qualities and its… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as Gods will when you yourself have warm clothes and… — 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
![“We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life!” quote by Thomas Merton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/cec/thomas-merton-231_beginners_we-do-not-want-to-be-beginners-at-prayer_583117.jpg)
