Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the… — Thomas Merton Advertising Copy Share Image
The danger of education, I have found, is that it so easily confuses means with ends. Worse than that, it quite easily… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“In actual fact, conventions are the death of real tradition as they are of all real life. They are parasites which attach… — Thomas Merton Convention Copy Share Image
“Advising the Prince The recluse Hsu Su Kwei had come to see Prince Wu. The Prince was glad. "I have desired," he… — Thomas Merton Doing right Copy Share Image
“When Life was Full In the age when life on earth was full, no one paid any special attention to worthy men,… — Thomas Merton Faith Copy Share Image
“Most of the world is either asleep or dead. The religious people are, for the most part, asleep. The irreligious are dead.… — Thomas Merton Belief Copy Share Image
“The peace the world pretends to desire is really no peace at all. To some men, peace merely means the liberty to… — Thomas Merton Fear Copy Share Image
“Solitude means withdrawal from an artificial and fictional level of being which men, divided by original sin, have fabricated in order to… — Thomas Merton Death Copy Share Image
The reality that is present to us and in us: call it being...Silence. And the simple fact that by being attentive, by… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“There is a 'movement' of meditation, expressing the basic 'paschal' rhythm of the Christian life, the passage from death to life in… — Thomas Merton Christ Copy Share Image
“...The more I think of them, the more I realize that I must certainly owe the Privats for more than butter and… — Thomas Merton Kindness Copy Share Image
“If there are no self-evident first principles, as a foundation for reasoning to conclusions that are not immediately apparent, how can you… — Thomas Merton Existence of god Copy Share Image
“Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Keng's Disciple The disciple: "When I don't know people treat me like a fool. When I do know, the knowledge gets me… — Thomas Merton Making Effort Copy Share Image
For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk, because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring… — Thomas Merton Anguish Copy Share Image
“How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books. They make us think that we really understand… — Thomas Merton Books Copy Share Image
“Duke Hwan and the Wheelwright (an excerpt) The world values books, and thinks that in so doing it is valuing Tao. But… — Thomas Merton Books Copy Share Image
“For at sixteen I had imagined that Blake, like the other romantics, was glorifying passion, natural energy, for their own sake. Far… — Thomas Merton Faith and love Copy Share Image
Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a… — Thomas Merton Alive Copy Share Image
Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy… — Thomas Merton Compassion Copy Share Image
“But give me the strength that waits upon You in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest, and… — Thomas Merton Heart and soul 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,… — Thomas Merton Contemplation Copy Share Image
It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know… — 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
“...only God's truth without limit, without defect, without stain. This clean light, which tastes of Paradise, is beyond all pride, beyond comment,… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“In the end the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that he no longer knows what God is. He may or may… — Thomas Merton Contemplative Copy Share Image
“It does not even seem to enter our minds that there might be some incongruity in praying to the God of peace,… — Thomas Merton Children Copy Share Image
“Justify my soul, O God, but also from Your fountains fill my will with fire. Shine in my mind, although perhaps this… — Thomas Merton Life Copy Share Image
Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
And it is in this darkness, when there is nothing left in us that can please or comfort our own minds, when… — Thomas Merton Abandonment Copy Share Image
The world of men has forgotten the joys of silence, the peace of solitude, which is necessary, to some extent, for the… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Once the question of grace and free will is reduced to a juridical matter, once witnesses line up with plaintiff or defendant… — Thomas Merton First place Copy Share Image
The Bible is not primarily a written or printed text to be scrutinized in private, in a scholar's study or a contemplative… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
I just remember their kindness and goodness to me, and their peacefulness and their utter simplicity. They inspired real reverence, and I… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“A man is a free being who is always changing into himself. This changing is never merely indifferent. We are always getting… — Thomas Merton Desires Copy Share Image
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“Syrian monk, Isaac of Niniveh: Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence. … Every man who… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
In any case, his religious teaching consisted mostly in more or less vague ethical remarks, an obscure mixture of ideals of English… — Thomas Merton Copy Share Image
“What a revelation it was, to discover so many ordinary people in a place together, more conscious of God than of one… — Thomas Merton Ordinary people Copy Share Image
