Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 11

Quotes about:

• This act of total surrender is not merely a fantastic intellectual and mystical gamble; it is something much more serious. It is an act of love for this unseen person, who, in the very gift of love by which we surrender ourselves to his reality also makes his presence known to us.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Reality, Intellectual

  14 Copy quote

• To be a saint is to be yourself.

  Thomas Merton

  Being Yourself, Saint

  6 Copy quote

• Faith is the door to the full inner life of the Church, a life which includes not only access to an authoritative teaching but above all to a deep personal experience which is at once unique and yet shared by the whole Body of Christ, in the Spirit of Christ.

  Thomas Merton

  Teaching, Unique, Doors

  John C. H. Wu, Jingxiong Wu, Thomas Merton, Kenneth Kraft (2003). “The Golden Age of Zen: Zen Masters of the T'Ang Dynasty”, p.21, World Wisdom, Inc

  8 Copy quote

• Infinite sharing is the law of God s inner life.

  Thomas Merton

  Law, Infinite, Inner Life

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

  10 Copy quote

• Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Athlete, Soul

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.117, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Keys, Understanding, Enemy

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

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Fire, Light

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

  5 Copy quote

• Life is not accomplishing some special work but attaining to a degree of consciousness and inner freedom which is beyond all works and attainments.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Special, Degrees

  Thomas Merton (1993). “The Courage for Truth: Letters to Writers”, p.345, Macmillan

  18 Copy quote

• In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of our own futility, and be content to be in Him and to do whatever He wills, according to our limitations, judging our acts not in the light of our own illusions, but in the light of His reality which is all around us in the things and people we live with.

  Thomas Merton

  Reality, Mirrors, Light

  Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

  9 Copy quote

• We cannot possess the truth fully until it has entered into the very substance of our life by good habits, and by a certain perfection of moral activity.

  Thomas Merton

  Perfection, Substance, Moral

  5 Copy quote

• Ash Wednesday is full of joy...The source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust.

  Thomas Merton

  Dust, Joy, Sorrow

  68 Copy quote

• Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

  Thomas Merton

  Relationship, Brother, Silence

  Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.280, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself.

  Thomas Merton

  Motivational, Men, Order

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.157, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

• The psychological impotence of our enraged generation must be traced to the overwhelming accusation of insincerity which every man and woman has to confront, in the depths of his own soul, when he seeks to love merely for his own pleasure.And yet the men of our time do not love with enough courage to risk even discomfort or inconvenience.

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Soul, Risk

  18 Copy quote

• I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

  Thomas Merton

  Angel, Faces, Peril

  Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.85, Sounds True

  15 Copy quote

• A Christian is committed to the belief that Love and Mercy are the most powerful forces on earth.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Powerful, Earth

  Thomas Merton (2010). “The Nonviolent Alternative”, p.105, Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

• Discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice �out there� calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice �in here� calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

  Thomas Merton

  Mean, Self, Voice

  11 Copy quote

• The simplest and most effective way to sanctity is to disappear into the background of ordinary every day routine.

  Thomas Merton

  Ordinary, Routine, Way

  Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.47, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Use, Answers

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.39, Macmillan

  8 Copy quote

• The truth never becomes clear as long as we assume that each one of us, individually, is the center of the universe.

  Thomas Merton

  Long, Assuming, Clear

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

  5 Copy quote

• The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and above itself. But when the light shines in it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and seems to lose its nature in the splendor of a higher nature, the nature of the light that is in it.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Men, Light

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.211, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  5 Copy quote

• In the end, it's the reality of personal realtionships that save everything.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Reality, Ends

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Sweet, Heart, Dark

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

  8 Copy quote

• Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Self, Order

  Thomas Merton (1972). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.180, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• If there is no silence beyond and within the many words of doctrine, there is no religion, only a religious ideology. For religion goes beyond words and actions, and attains to the ultimate Truth only in silence and Love.

  Thomas Merton

  Religious, Silence, And Love

  Thomas Merton, Robert Inchausti (2007). “Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing”, p.56, Shambhala Publications

  13 Copy quote

Page 11 of 25

First

← Prev

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin