The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist…It… — Thomas Merton Creating Copy Share Image
“The truth that many people never understand is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more your suffer, because smaller… — Thomas Merton Fear 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 Life Copy Share Image
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own… — Thomas Merton Beginning Copy Share Image
In meditative prayer, one thinks and speaks not only with the mind and lips, but in a certain sense with one's whole… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness.… — Thomas Merton Darkness Copy Share Image
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
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
Our thought should not merely be an answer to what someone else has just said. Or what someone else might have said.… — Thomas Merton 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
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves.… — Thomas Merton Artist Copy Share Image
I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process.… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“He arrives at his own being as if it were an objective reality, that is to say he strives to become aware… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“We are what we love. If we love God, in whose image we were created, we discover ourselves in him and we… — Thomas Merton Being human 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… — Thomas Merton Darkness Copy Share Image
By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to… — Thomas Merton Bible Copy Share Image
As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I consider myself a saint? How can I consider myself a… — 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
We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, drain every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Confucious and the Madman (excerpt) The cinnamon tree is edible: so it is cut down! The lacquer tree is profitable: they maim… — 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 Communication Copy Share Image
I am against war, against violence, against violent revolution, for peaceful settlement of differences, for nonviolent but nevertheless radical changes. Change is… — Thomas Merton Against violence Copy Share Image
“But if we love ourselves in the wrong way, we become incapable of loving anybody else. And indeed when we love ourselves… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The only influence that can really upset the injustice and iniquity of men is the power that breathes in the Christian tradition,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The camera does not know what it takes; it captures materials with which you reconstruct, not so much what you saw as… — Thomas Merton Cameras Copy Share Image
Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness… — Thomas Merton Avarice Copy Share Image
The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with a red hot iron. I have to pick up the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence,… — Thomas Merton Character 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 Peace Copy Share Image
“The earthly desires men cherish are shadows. There is no true happiness in fulfilling them. Why, then, do we continue to pursue… — Thomas Merton Desire Copy Share Image
“It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His… — Thomas Merton Compassion Copy Share Image
There are days when I am convinced that Heaven starts already, now, in this ordinary life just as it is, in all… — 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 Death Copy Share Image
It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, now I realize what we all are . If… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
... Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove… — Thomas Merton Autumn Copy Share Image
Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in… — Thomas Merton Called by god Copy Share Image
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
But there is no substance under the things I have gathered together about me. I am hollow, and my structure of pleasures… — Thomas Merton Ambition Copy Share Image
![“It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, now I realize what we all are . If only they [people] could all see themselves as they really are I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which…” quote by Thomas Merton](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/615/thomas-merton-231_big-problem_it-is-a-glorious-destiny-to-be-a-member_1795511.jpg)
