Authors:

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 19

All Quotes Acceptance Acting Age Ambition Anxiety Art Attitude Awakening Awareness Being Alone Being Single Being Yourself Belief Charity Children Choices Christ Christianity Church College Communication Compassion Consciousness Contemplation Country Courage Creation Darkness Desire Destiny Devil Discipline Doubt Earth Effort Eternity Evil Exercise Failing Faith Freedom Giving Glory God Grace Gratitude Happiness Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Hell Home Humanity Humility Identity Imagination Individuality Inspiration Inspirational Integrity Intuition Jesus Journey Joy Justice Language Liberty Life Logic Loneliness Love Lying Meditation Mercy Mindfulness Moon Overcoming Passion Peace Perfection Poverty Praise Prayer Pride Purpose Rain Reality Reflection Responsibility Risk Sacrifice Silence Simplicity Sin Solitude Sorrow Soul Spirituality Spring Study Suffering Teaching Temptation Today Truth Unconditional Love Understanding Unity Values Violence Vision Waiting War Wisdom Work Out Worry Worship Writing

It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if

It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else's life? His sanctity will never be yours; you must have the humility to work out your own salvation in a darkness where you are absolutely alone.

Humility, Journey, Men

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.100, New Directions Publishing

Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.

Loneliness, Being Alone, Profound

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.81, New Directions Publishing

I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not ask of me.

Wisdom, Thorns, Penance

Thomas Merton (1974). “A Thomas Merton Reader”, Image

Charity is without fear: having given all that it has, it has nothing left to lose.

Charity, Given, Loses

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.174, Shambhala Publications

Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten. Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past. A memory that is not alive to the present does not remember the here and now, does not remember its true identity, is not memory at all. He who remembers nothing but facts and past events, and is never brought back into the present, is a victim of amnesia.

Memories, Past, True Identity

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

The end of the world will be legal.

Wisdom, World, End Of The World

One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendour that is all around us.

Beauty, Reality, Important

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.33, Shambhala Publications

God Himself begins to live in me not only as my Creator but as my other and true self.

Self, True Self, Creator

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.41, New Directions Publishing

Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in the purity of our love for God, and this pure love is a delicate plant that grows best where there is plenty of time for it to mature

Love Is, Perfection, Our Love

Thomas Merton (1960). “Spiritual Direction and Meditation”, p.85, Liturgical Press

It is by desiring to grow in love that we receive the Holy Spirit, and the thirst for more charity is the effect of this more abundant reception.

Wisdom, Charity, Spirit

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.190, Shambhala Publications

Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice.

Peace, Sacrifice, Heroism

Thomas Merton (2010). “The Nonviolent Alternative”, p.35, Macmillan

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverance for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

Single, Brother, Silence

Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.280, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

If we examine ourselves carefully we shall see most of us have an enormous amount of unfinished business...We have to be free so that we can just step across the line and that's it. That is what real freedom is.

Real, Unfinished Business, Lines

I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.

People, Body, Fancy

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.24, Shambhala Publications

Be still: There is no longer any need of comment. It was a lucky wind That blew away his halo with his cares, A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.

Wind, Sea, Lucky

Thomas Merton (1974). “A Thomas Merton Reader”, Image

Curiously, the most serious religious people, or the most concerned scholars, those who constantly read the Bible as a matter of professional or pious duty, can often manage to evade a radically involved dialogue with the book they are questioning.

Religious, Book, People

Cupidity...takes created things for ends in themselves, which they are not. The will that seeks rest in creatures for their own sake stops on the way to its true end, terminates in a value which does not exist, and thus frustrates all its deepest capacities for happiness and peace.

Doe, Sake, Way

To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor.

Responsibility, Decision, Faces

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.74, New Directions Publishing

Love is free; it does not depend on the desirability of its object, but loves for love's sake.

Love Is, Doe, Sake

Thomas Merton (1974). “A Thomas Merton Reader”, Image

My best writing has always been in journals.

Writing, Journal

Thomas Merton, Lawrence Cunningham (1996). “A search for solitude: pursuing the monk's true life”, Harper San Francisco

How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books. They make us think that we really understand things of which we have no practical knowledge at all.

Wisdom, Book, Thinking

Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.249, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The logic of the poet - that is, the logic of language or the experience itself - develops the way a living organism grows: it spreads out towards what it loves, and is heliotropic, like a plant.

Way, Logic, Language

"The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton". Book by Thomas Merton, 1959.

There is a logic of language and a logic of mathematics.

Logic, Language, Mathematics

Thomas Merton (1995). “Run to the mountain: the story of a vocation”, Harpercollins

The only true liberty is in the service of that which is beyond all limits, beyond all definitions, beyond all human appreciation: that which is All, and which therefore is no limited or individual thing: The All is no-thing, for if it were to be a single thing separated from all other things, it would not be All.

Spiritual, Appreciation, Liberty

Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.58, Sounds True

This is the crucifixion of Christ: in which He dies again and again in the individuals who were made to share the joy and freedom of His grace, and who deny Him.

Crucifixion Of Christ, Joy, Grace

Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.158, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

You May Also Like: