God, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absent. If we do not… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“We know by fresh discovery, the deep reality that is our concrete existence here and now and in the depths of that… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is a kind of pride to insist that none of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
His justice is the love that gives to each one of His creatures the gifts that His mercy has previously decreed. And… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
They were in the world and not of it--not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
This act of total surrender is not merely a fantastic intellectual and mystical gamble; it is something much more serious. It is… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“My chief care should not be to find pleasure or success, health or life or money or rest or even things like… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Action and Non-Action The non-action of the wise man is not inaction. It is not studied. It is not shaken by anything.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Therefore, doing the Stations of the Cross was still more laborious than consoling, and required a sacrifice. It was much the same… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We live in a society whose whole policy is to excite every nerve in the human body and keep it at the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I had refused to pay any attention to the moral laws upon which all our vitality and sanity depend: and so now… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Leaving Things Alone (excerpt) You train your eye and your vision lusts after colour. You train your ear, and you long for… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is true that neither the ancient wisdoms nor the modern sciences are complete in themselves. They do not stand alone. They… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The lights of prayer that make us imagine we are beginning to be angels are sometimes only signs that we are finally… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Living is not thinking. Thought is formed and guided by objective reality outside us. Living is the constant adjustment of thought to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The secret of my full identity is hidden in Him. He alone can make me who I am, or rather who I… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In all His acts God orders all things, whether good or evil, for the good of those who know Him and seek… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In the end, it's the reality of personal realtionships that save everything. — 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
But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question. — 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
Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To desire Him to be merciful to us is to acknowledge Him as God. To seek His pity when we deserve no… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
…it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“When Knowledge Went North (excerpt) As for us, We came nowhere near being right, Since we have the answers. "For he who… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
And of course most non-Catholics imagine that the Church is immensely rich, and that all Catholic institutions make money hand over fist,… — 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
Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Merely to resist evil with evil by hating those who hate us and seeking to destroy them, is actually no resistance at… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is the will of God that we live not only as rational beings, but as "new men" regenerated by the Holy… — 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
![“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree” quote by Thomas Merton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/d5f/thomas-merton-231_consent_a-tree-gives-glory-to-god-by-being-a-tre_2294763.jpg)
