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
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
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
In our creation, God asked a question and in our truly living; God answers the question. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
For the ones who are called saints by human opinion on earth may very well be devils, and their light may very… — 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
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
We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of… — 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
“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
The land which thou goest to possess is not like the land of Egypt from whence thou camest out... For my thoughts… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Our technological society has no longer any place in it for wisdom that seeks truth for its own sake, that seeks the… — 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
The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in… — 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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
True happiness is not found in any other reward than that of being united with God. If I seek some other reward… — 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
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
Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone. — 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
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
“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
There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues. — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist. — 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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
“Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and fruitful silence… — Thomas Merton Copy Share
![“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/i/cec/thomas-merton-231_beginners_we-do-not-want-to-be-beginners-at-prayer_583117.jpg)
