The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to… — 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
The world is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own… — Thomas Merton Life 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 grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. — Thomas Merton Differences Copy Share Image
To love our nothingness we must love everything in us that the proud man loves when he loves himself. But we must… — Thomas Merton Love Copy Share Image
Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something… — Thomas Merton Giving Copy Share Image
Our knowledge of God is perfected by gratiitude: we are thankful and rejoice in the experience of the truth that He is… — Thomas Merton God 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 Catholic Copy Share Image
“As a magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun into a little burning knot of heat that can set fire to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Weaknesses and deficiencies . . . play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we… — Thomas Merton Deficiencies Copy Share Image
Humble people can do great things with uncommon perfection because they are no longer concerned about their own interests and their own… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“It is true that God knows Himself in all the things that exist. He sees them, and it is because He sees… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot find Him unless we know we need Him. We forget this need when we take a self-sufficient pleasure in our… — Thomas Merton Belief 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
Solitude is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient solitude to develop the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin… — Thomas Merton Beauty Copy Share Image
“I got to a state where phrases like "the Good, the True, and the Beautiful" filled me with a kind of suppressed… — Thomas Merton Beauty Copy Share Image
“Who can free himself from achievement And from fame, descend and be lost Amid the masses of men? He will flow like… — Thomas Merton Fame Copy Share Image
“On the last day of January 1915, under the sign of the Water Bearer, in a year of a great war, and… — Thomas Merton Great war Copy Share Image
In general, it can be said that no contemplative life is possible without ascetic self-discipline. One must learn to survive without the… — 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 Consoling Copy Share Image
I am willing to admit that some people might live there for years, or even a lifetime, so protected that they never… — Thomas Merton Accusation Copy Share Image
“Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world, and makes us see it, all… — Thomas Merton Contemplation Copy Share Image
Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In this age of crowds in which I have determined to be a solitary, perhaps the greatest sin would be to lament… — Thomas Merton Age Copy Share Image
It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister. — Thomas Merton Brother Copy Share Image
Life is not accomplishing some special work but attaining to a degree of consciousness and inner freedom which is beyond all works… — Thomas Merton Attaining Copy Share Image
If there was no other proof of the infinite patience of God, a very good one could be found in His toleration… — Thomas Merton Artist Copy Share Image
I am earth, earth My heart's love Bursts with hay and flowers. I am a lake of blue air In which my… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how. — Thomas Merton Courage Copy Share Image
For although God is right with us and in us and out of us and all through us, we have to go… — Thomas Merton God Copy Share Image
Zen is consciousness unstructured by particular form or particular system, a trans-cultural, trans-religious, transformed consciousness. — Thomas Merton Consciousness 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 Jesus Copy Share Image
It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more… — Thomas Merton Better world Copy Share Image
“This time is given to me by God that I may live in it. It is not given to make something out… — Thomas Merton Eternity Copy Share Image
May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
There is not true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude. — Thomas Merton Inspirational Copy Share Image
Prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him...who loves us, who is near… — Thomas Merton Inspirational Copy Share Image
The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the other… The whole purpose of life is to live… — Thomas Merton Awareness Copy Share Image
