Life itself Quote by Thomas Merton

““Who can free himself from achievement And from fame, descend and be lost Amid the masses of men? He will flow like Tao, unseen, He will go about like Life itself With no name and no home. Simple is he, without distinction. To all appearances he is a fool. His steps leave no trace. He has no power. He achieves nothing, has no reputation. Since he judges no one No one judges him. Such is the perfect man: His boat is empty.””

Thomas Merton

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“Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep, inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of…

Thomas Merton

If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness. Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence. Since God cannot be imagined, anything our imagination tells…

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It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only…

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We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human…

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The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with an ingot of red -hot iron: I have to pick up the…

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To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance to a…

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The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of…

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Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs gestated in…

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Things that are good are good, and if one is responding to that goodness one is in contact with a truth from which one…

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Love winter when the plant says nothing.

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The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of…

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“The wisdom of the flesh is a judgement that the ordinary ends of our natural appetites are the goods to which the whole of…

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“That we can prescribe the terms of our own success, that we can live outside or in ignorance of the Great Economy are the greatest errors. They condemn us to a life without a standard, wavering in inescapable bewilderment from paltry self-satisfaction to paltry self-dissatisfaction. But since we have no place to live but in the Great Economy, whether or…

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“Do not all theists insist that there can be no morality, no justice, honesty or fidelity without the belief in a Divine Power? Based upon fear and hope, such morality has always been a vile product, imbued partly with self-righteousness, partly with hypocrisy. As to truth, justice, and fidelity, who have been their brave exponents and daring proclaimers? Nearly always…

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