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 21

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

How far have I to go to find you in whom I have already arrived.

How far have I to go to find you in whom I have already arrived.

Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.484, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Therefore, doing the Stations of the Cross was still more laborious than consoling, and required a sacrifice. It was much the same with all my devotions. They did not come easily or spontaneously, and they very seldom brought with them any strong sensible satisfaction. Nevertheless the work of performing them ended in a profound and fortifying peace: a peace that was scarcely perceptible, but which deepened and which, as my passions subsided, became more and more real, more and more sure, and finally stayed with me permanently.

Wisdom, Strong, Real

The land which thou goest to possess is not like the land of Egypt from whence thou camest out... For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord...Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near...Why do you spend money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which doth not satisfy you?

Wisdom, Egypt, Land

Thomas Merton (1998). “The seven storey mountain”, Harcourt

The primordial blessing, 'increase and multiply', has suddenly become a hemorrhage of terror. We are numbered in billions, and massed together, marshalled, numbered, marched here and there, taxed, drilled, armed, worked to the point of insensibility, dazed by information, drugged by entertainment, surfeited with everything, nauseated with the human race and with ourselves, nauseated with life.

Blessing, Race, Together

Thomas Merton (1966). “Raids on the Unspeakable”, p.70, New Directions Publishing

The secret of my full identity is hidden in Him. He alone can make me who I am, or rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be. But unless I desire this identity and work to find it with Him and in Him, the work will never be done

Wisdom, Who I Am, Secret

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.33, New Directions Publishing

Violence is essentially wordless. and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.

Communication, Broken, Violence

Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton (1965). “Gandhi on Non-violence”, p.7, New Directions Publishing

As a magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun into a little burning knot of heat that can set fire to a dry leaf or a piece of paper, so the mystery of Christ in the Gospel concentrates the rays of God's light and fire to a point that sets fire to the spirit of man. ... Through the glass of His Incarnation He concentrates the rays of His Divine Truth and Love upon us so that we feel the burn, and all mystical experience is communicated to men through the Man Christ.

Spiritual, Men, Fire

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.150, New Directions Publishing

The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and divisive. A life of prayer is basically a very simple life. This simplicity, however, is the result of asceticism and effort: it is not a spontaneous simplicity.

Prayer, Simple, Simplicity

Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two.

Distance, Loss, Discovery

Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.45, Macmillan

Teach me to take all grace / And spring it into blades of act, / Grow spears and sheaves of charity, / While each new instant, (new eternity) / Flowering with clean and individual circumstance, / Speaks me the whisper of [God's] consecrating Spirit. / Then will obedience bring forth new Incarnations / Shining to God with the features of [the Lord's] Christ.

Spring, Shining, Grace

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

Political, Want, Study

I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand; but it is my shortcut to your soul.

Loneliness, Soul, Solitude

The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.

Wisdom, Evil, Temptation

If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our work.

Silence, Doe, Bless

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.134, Shambhala Publications

The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole human race with an error that makes all our acts more or less lies against God.

Wisdom, Lying, Errors

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.212, Shambhala Publications

The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself.

Attitude, Real, Fundamentals

Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.124, Sounds True

There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us.

Spiritual, Wisdom, Reality

Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.18, Macmillan

Solitude is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient solitude to develop the inner life of the persons who compose it, they rebel and seek false solitudes.

Solitude, Rebel, Failing

Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.271, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

We love the things we pretend to laugh at.

Laughing

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.204, Shambhala Publications

Grains of error planted innocently in a well-kept greenhouse can become giant poisonous trees.

Errors, Tree, Giants

Thomas Merton (1993). “The Courage for Truth: Letters to Writers”, p.293, Macmillan

But precisely this illusion that everything is "clear" is what is blinding us all. It is a serious temptation, and it is a subtle form of pride and worldly love of power and revenge.

Revenge, Pride, Temptation

Thomas Merton (1995). “Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis”, p.183, Macmillan

We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to 'like' one another. Love governs the will: 'liking' is a matter of sense and sensibility. Nevertheless, if we really love others it will not be too hard to like them also.

Matter, Love One Another, Nevertheless

Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.193, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.

Silence, Grace, May

Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.179, Macmillan

A daydream is an evasion.

Daydreaming, Evasion

Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.27, Image

There is not true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude.

Soul, Solitude, Intimacy

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.175, Shambhala Publications

You May Also Like: