Thomas Merton Quotes About Giving

Quotes about: Giving

• We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.

  Thomas Merton

  Giving, Ifs, Known

  John Howard Griffin, Thomas Merton (1970). “A hidden wholeness: the visual world of Thomas Merton”, Mariner Books

• If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Money, Writing

  Thomas Merton, Robert Inchausti (2007). “Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing”, p.198, Shambhala Publications

• The Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the Father gives most easily.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Father, Men

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.189, Shambhala Publications

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

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Capacity To Love, Giving

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

• If we wait for some people to become agreeable or attractive before we begin to love them, we will never begin. If we are content to give them a cold impersonal 'charity' that is merely a matter of obligation, we will not trouble to understand them or to sympathize with them at all. And in that case we will not really love them, because love implies an efficacious will not only to do good to others exteriorly but also to find some good in them to which we can respond."

  Thomas Merton

  People, Giving, Waiting

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.179, Shambhala Publications

• What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give to others.

  Thomas Merton

  Mean, Giving, Firsts

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

• Each particular being, in its individuality, its concrete nature and entity, with all its own characteristics and its private qualities and its own inviolable identity, gives glory to God by being precisely what He wants it to be here and now, in the circumstances ordained for it by His Love and His infinite Art.

  Thomas Merton

  Art, Giving, Individuality

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.30, New Directions Publishing

• Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.

  Thomas Merton

  Giving Up, Self, Doe

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.33, Macmillan

• We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295)

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Real, Two

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

• A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying [God]. It “consents,” so to speak, to [God's] creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Mean, Essence

  "New Seeds of Contemplation". Book by Thomas Merton, 1972.

• We know when we are following our vocation when our soul is set free from preoccupation with itself and is able to seek God and even to find Him, even though it may not appear to find Him. Gratitude and confidence and freedom from ourselves: these are signs that we have found our vocation and are living up to it even though everything else may seem to have gone wrong. They give us peace in any suffering. They teach us to laugh at despair. And we may have to.

  Thomas Merton

  Gratitude, Giving, Laughing

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.147, Shambhala Publications

• The gift of love is the gift of the power and capacity to love, and therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received.

  Thomas Merton

  Positive, Love Is, Law Of Attraction

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.28, 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Doors, Giving

• His justice is the love that gives to each one of His creatures the gifts that His mercy has previously decreed. And His mercy is His love, doing justice to its own exigencies, and renewing the gift which we had failed to accept.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Giving, Justice

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.237, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

• 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Heart, Expression

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

• Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our own lives in relation to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence.

  Thomas Merton

  Giving, Perspective, Silence

  Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.49, Macmillan

• A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him.... The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Mean, Giving, Tree

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.29, New Directions Publishing

• Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.

  Thomas Merton

  Names, Numbers, Giving

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.12, Shambhala Publications

• 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?

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Giving, Doe

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

• We must suffer. Our five sense are dulled by inordinate pleasure. Penance makes them keen, gives them back their natural vitality, and more. Penance clears the eye of conscience and of reason. It helps think clearly, judge sanely. It strengthens the action of our will.

  Thomas Merton

  Eye, Thinking, Giving

  "Thoughts in Solitude". Book by Thomas Merton, 1956.

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