Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 10

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• Prayer is an expression of who we are...We are a living incompleteness. We are a gap, an emptiness that calls for fulfillment.

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Expression, Who We Are

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• 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Humility, Heart, Thinking

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

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• Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Oneness, Grace

  Thomas Merton (2003). “The New Man”, p.29, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Merely to resist evil with evil by hating those who hate us and seeking to destroy them, is actually no resistance at all. It is active and purposeful collaboration in evil that brings the Christian into direct and intimate contact with the same source of evil and hatred which inspires the acts of his enemy. It leads in practice to a denial of Christ and to the service of hatred rather than love.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Wisdom, Hate

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• True happiness is found in unselfish Love, A love which increases in proportion as it is shared.

  Thomas Merton

  Happiness And Love, Unselfish Love, True Happiness

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.1, Shambhala Publications

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• The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.

  Thomas Merton

  Fire, Feet, World

  Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.228, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The only way to make a man worthy of love is by loving him.

  Thomas Merton

  Love Is, Men, Way

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• Modern man believes he is fruitful and productive when his ego is aggressively affirmed, when he is visibly active, and when his action produces obvious results.

  Thomas Merton

  Believe, Men, Ego

  Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.27, Macmillan

  24 Copy quote

• Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.

  Thomas Merton

  Peace, Solitude, Looks

  Thomas Merton (2012). “On Christian Contemplation”, p.36, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all others.

  Thomas Merton

  Protect, Expenses

  Thomas Merton (2010). “The Nonviolent Alternative”, p.213, Macmillan

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• The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals, although those things are good and useful in themselves--and perhaps very badly needed in India: they want to know if we have any saints to send them.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, School, Men

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.240, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I have my own way to walk and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever I go. So there it is, with all its beautiful purposelessness, and it has become very familiar to me though I do not know "what it is." Or even if it is an "it." Not to be foolish and multiply words, I'll say simply that it seems to me that Zen is the very atmosphere of the Gospels, and the Gospels are bursting with it. It is the proper climate for any monk, no matter what kind of monk he may be. If I could not breathe Zen I would probably die of spiritual asphyxiation.

  Thomas Merton

  Beautiful, Spiritual, Atmosphere

  Thomas Merton (1988). “Encounter: Thomas Merton & D.T. Suzuki”

  9 Copy quote

• We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves. But a selfish love of ourselves makes us incapable of loving others.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Selfish, Loving Others

  12 Copy quote

• Zen insight is not our awareness, but Being's awareness of itself in us.

  Thomas Merton

  Awareness, Insight

  Thomas Merton (1999). “Mystics and Zen Masters”, p.17, Macmillan

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• In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.

  Thomas Merton

  Shopping, People, Louisville

  Thomas Merton, M. Basil Pennington (2005). “Thomas Merton: I Have Seen what I was Looking for : Selected Spiritual Writings”, p.55, New City Press

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• We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Prayer, Beginners

  "Contemplative Prayer".

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• Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some sense explains.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Art, Order

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.36, Shambhala Publications

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• I can depend less and less on my own power and sense of direction...It is so strange to advance backwards and get where you are going in a totally unexpected way

  Thomas Merton

  Way, Unexpected, Strange

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• For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Mean, Self

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.31, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Truth, Errors

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.246, Shambhala Publications

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• When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of it, I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively no distraction. My whole life becomes a prayer. My whole silence is full of prayer. The world of silence in which I am immersed contributes to my prayer.

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Silence, World

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.106, Macmillan

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• 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

  7 Copy quote

• The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence. And Zen. suggests that we may be driving toward one or the other on a cosmic scale. Driving toward them because, one way or the other, as madmen or innocents, we are already there. It might be good to open our eyes and see.

  Thomas Merton

  Eye, May, Might

  "Zen and the Birds of Appetite".

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• There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

  Thomas Merton

  Self Esteem, People, Shining

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.155, Image

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• Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Wisdom, Prayer

  "New Seeds of Contemplation".

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