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Thomas Merton Quotes about Heart

All Thomas Merton 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 quotes 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

When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know

When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

Life, Children, Heart

In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your piece of heart. As soon as you compare that shadow with the shadows of other people, you lose all joy, because you have begun to trade in unrealities and there is no joy in things that do not exist.

Heart, Humility, Thinking

Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves.

Heart, Capacity To Love, Giving

Thomas Merton (2010). “Seasons of Celebration”, p.103, Macmillan

Our real journey in life is interior; It is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary to respond to that action.

Real, Heart, Journey

Thomas Merton (1975). “The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton”, p.296, New Directions Publishing

The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility.

Sweet, Heart, Men

Thomas Merton (1962). “Seeds of contemplation”

If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts.

Being Single, Being Alone, Heart

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.121, Shambhala Publications

Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.

Disappointment, Eye, Heart

Thomas Merton (1990). “The School of Charity: The Letters Of Thomas Merton On Religious Renewal & Spiritual Direction”, p.292, Macmillan

In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your peace of heart.

Humility, Heart, Thinking

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.57, New Directions Publishing

Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.

Heart, Fire, Light

Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.89, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.

Sweet, Heart, Dark

Thomas Merton (1997). “Dancing In The Water Of Life Volume 5:1963-1965: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage”, HarperOne

God has left sin in the world in order that there may be forgiveness: not only the secret forgiveness by which He Himself cleanses our souls, but the manifest forgiveness by which we have mercy on one another and so give expression to the fact that He is living, by His mercy, in our own hearts.

Wisdom, Heart, Expression

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.220, Shambhala Publications

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.

Heart, Meditation, Doubt

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.12, New Directions Publishing

Spread abroad the name of Jesus in humility and with a meek heart; show him your feebleness, and he will become your strength.

Jesus, Humility, Heart

If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.

Wisdom, Heart, Carpe Diem

Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.30, Macmillan

For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to another. If my heart does not first belong to me, how can I give it to another?

Heart, Giving, Doe

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.28, Shambhala Publications

The desire to kill is like the desire to attack another with an ingot of red -hot iron: I have to pick up the incandescent metal and burn my own hand while burning the other. Hate itself is the seed of death in my own heart, while it seeks the death of the other.

Hate, Heart, Love Is

"The Nonviolent Alternative".

Death is someone you see very clearly with eyes in the center of your heart: eyes that see not by reacting to light, but by reacting to a kind of a chill from within the marrow of your own life.

Death, Wisdom, Heart

Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.132, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It is not merely our own desire but the desire of Christ in His Spirit that drives us to grow in love. Those who seldom or never feel in their hearts the desire for the love of God and other men, and who do not thirst for the pure waters of desire which are poured out in us by the strong, living God, are usually those who have drunk from other rivers or have dug for themselves broken cisterns.

Wisdom, Strong, Heart

Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.206, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

One opens the inner doors of one's heart to the infinite silences of the Spirit, out of whose abysses love wells up without fail and gives itself to all.

Heart, Doors, Giving

I am earth, earth My heart's love Bursts with hay and flowers. I am a lake of blue air In which my own appointed place Field and valley Stand reflected

Flower, Heart, Lakes

Thomas Merton, Lynn Szabo (2005). “In the Dark Before Dawn: New Selected Poems of Thomas Merton”, p.97, New Directions Publishing

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