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Thomas Merton Quotes about Life

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To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

Thomas Merton
Love, Life, Wisdom
Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.60, New Directions Publishing

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

Thomas Merton
Life, God, Spiritual
Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.64, Macmillan

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.

Thomas Merton
Life, Children, Heart

Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.

Thomas Merton
Life, Country, Art
Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, New Directions Publishing

A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.

Thomas Merton
Life, Wisdom, Men
Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.99, Macmillan

The meaning of life is found in openness to being and "being present" in full awareness.

Thomas Merton
Life, Awareness, Found
Thomas Merton (2010). “Zen and the Birds of Appetite”, p.81, New Directions Publishing

Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels that you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you are capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy.

Thomas Merton
Life, Thinking, Political
Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!

Thomas Merton
Life, Wisdom, Real
Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.387, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

We do not exist for ourselves.

Thomas Merton
Life, Happiness, Success
Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.21, Shambhala Publications

Today will never come again.

Thomas Merton
Life, Today

... but any fool knows that you don't need money to get enjoyment out of life.

Thomas Merton
Life, Needs, Fool
Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.29, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis, but first of all by living. For until we have begun to live our prudence has no material to work on. And until we have begun to fail we have no way of working out our success.

Thomas Merton
Life, Work Out, Analysis

Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action.

Thomas Merton
Life, Real, Keys
Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.216, Macmillan

No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.

Thomas Merton
Life, Men, Long
Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.11, Shambhala Publications

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