Beginning Quote by Basil Hume

“Monasticism is really based on the idea that if you leave people, you leave the spirit of the world. But you do not. You…

— David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

The monastic folks have the spirit of being in the world but not of the world, sort of peculiar people who have gone to…

— Shane Claiborne

“Monasticism resonated with me, with my imperfect, impulsive self, because it encompasses all human activity and asks that the disparate parts and moments of…

— Paul Wilkes

“We often conceive of worldly life as merely a kind of default existence that anyone who is not specially called to monasticism or ordination…

— Daniel G. Opperwall

I used to be monastic, almost. Now I'm like a Tibetan that has discovered hamburgers and television. I'm catching up on Americana.

— Joni Mitchell

“the pool of individuals to whom the monastic philosophy applies is limited—and that’s okay. If you’re outside this pool, its radical simplicity shouldn’t evince…

— Cal Newport

I think they [ monastic folks ] were going to the desert to build a new society and in a sense to build a…

— Shane Claiborne

There is a basic problem that a lot of Western monks and nuns become ordained without really understanding or appreciating what the monastic life…

— Tenzin Palmo

There is one big misunderstanding of the monastics leaving society.

— Shane Claiborne

“From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism is condemned. Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs…

— Victor Hugo

My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.

— John Keats

“Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual…

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer