If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Zen insight is not our awareness, but Being's awareness of itself in us. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books. They make us think that we really understand… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In our creation, God asked a question and in our truly living; God answers the question. — 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
The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Show us your Christ, Lady, after this our exile, yes: but show Him to us also now, show Him to us here,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own… — 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 Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had… — 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
Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone… — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The most awful tyranny is that of the proximate Utopia where the last sins are currently being eliminated and where, tomorrow, there… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I am beginning to realize that "sanity" is no longer a value or an end in itself. The "sanity" of modern man… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again, "Solitude, solitude."… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious unity and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) The wise man, then, when he must govern, knows how to do nothing. Letting things alone, he rests… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with… — 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
Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Day after day I read Freud, thinking myself to be very enlightened and scientific when, as a matter of fact, I was… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Indeed, it is a kind of quintessence of pride to hate and fear even the kind and legitimate approval of those who… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The deepest of level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless ... beyond speech ... beyond concept. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom… — 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
Jesus lived and died in vain if He did not teach us to regulate the whole of life by the eternal law… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all… — 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)
