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
“I thought to myself, who is this excellent man Van Doren who being employed to teach literature, teaches just that: talks about… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I refuse to be misled by any kind of a mirage about any alleged success of what I write. Those things are… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
My own personal task is not simply that of poet and writer (still less commentator, pseudo-prophet); it is basically to praise God… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“God does not demand that every man attain to what is theoretically highest and best. It is better to be a good… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“In other words, I have tried to learn in my writing a monastic lesson I could probably not have learned otherwise: to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind… — 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
“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
