“Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart; eyes that see not by reacting to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by… — Thomas Merton Anxiety Copy Share Image
Thinking about monastic ideals is not the same as living up to them, but at any rate such thinking has an important… — Thomas Merton Happiness Copy Share Image
“Some men turn away from all this cheap emotion with a kind of heroic despair…But this too can be an error. For… — Thomas Merton Despair Copy Share Image
“It is God’s love that speaks to me in the birds and streams; but also behind the clamor of the city God… — Thomas Merton God Copy Share Image
“So much depends on our idea of God! Yet no idea of Him, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express Him… — 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“He is heard only when we hope to hear Him, and if, thinking our hope to be fulfilled, we cease to speak,… — Thomas Merton Hope Copy Share Image
“In the use of force, one simplifies the situation by assuming that the evil to be overcome is clear-cut, definite, and irreversible.… — Thomas Merton Evil Copy Share Image
“It is a pity that the beautiful Christian metaphor “salvation” has come to be so hackneyed and therefore so despised. It has… — Thomas Merton Divine mercy Copy Share Image
O God, teach me to be satisfied with my own helplessness in the spiritual life. Teach me to be content with Your… — Thomas Merton Appetite 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
“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
In an age where there is much talk about "being yourself," I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself,… — Thomas Merton Adaptability Copy Share Image
But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that… — Thomas Merton Compassion Copy Share Image
“... it may express the solitary's conviction that he is not good enough for most of the visible exercises of the community,… — Thomas Merton Faith Copy Share Image
One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to… — Thomas Merton Ability Copy Share Image
The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of… — Thomas Merton Attitude Copy Share Image
God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of him. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
It is both dangerous and easy to hate man as he is because he is not what he ought to be. If… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I am beginning to realize that "sanity" is no longer a value or an end in itself. If modern people were a… — Thomas Merton Absurdity Copy Share Image
One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you… — Thomas Merton Bears 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… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
All men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure… — Thomas Merton Appetite Copy Share Image
The only thing to seek in contemplative prayer is God; and we seek Him successfully when we realize that we cannot find… — Thomas Merton Contemplative Copy Share Image
Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other,… — Thomas Merton Action Copy Share Image
What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great… — 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… — Thomas Merton Applause Copy Share Image
Ultimately faith is the only key to the universe. The final meaning of human existence, and the answers to the questions on… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
God must be allowed the right to speak unpredictably… We must find him in our enemy, or we may lose him even… — Thomas Merton Abstraction Copy Share Image
“Above all things have charity, which is the bond of perfection and may the peace of Christ exult in your hearts in… — Thomas Merton Mystical Copy Share Image
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The art of our time, sacred art included, will necessarily be characterized by a certain poverty, grimness and roughness which correspond to… — Thomas Merton Age Copy Share Image
The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals, although those things are good… — Thomas Merton Hinduism Copy Share Image
None of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to… — Thomas Merton Acting Copy Share Image
The only trouble is that in the spiritual life there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
Imagination has the creative task of making symbols, joining things together in such a way that they throw new light on each… — Thomas Merton Art Copy Share Image
