Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 19

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• The only trouble is that in the spiritual life there are no tricks and no shortcuts. Those who imagine that they can discover spiritual gimmicks and put them to work for themselves usually ignore God's will and his grace.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Grace

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Strong, Heart

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

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• The problem today is that there are no deserts, only dude ranches.

  Thomas Merton

  Desert, Today, Problem

  Thomas Merton (1966). “Raids on the Unspeakable”, p.19, New Directions Publishing

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• The world as pure object is something that is not there. It is not a reality outside us for which we exist....It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself, my own unique door.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Responsibility, Unique

  Nicki Verploegen Vandergrift, Thomas Merton (1995). “Meditations with Merton”, Triumph Books

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• All men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure and reputation and power, cut themselves off from that charity which is the principle of all spiritual vitality and happiness because it alone saves us from the barren wilderness of our own abominable selfishness.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Cutting, Men

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.172, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The whole world has risen in Christ... If God is 'all in all,' then everything is in fact paradise, because it is filled with the glory and presence of God, and nothing is any more separated from God.

  Thomas Merton

  World, Paradise, Facts

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.822, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age of the Church Fathers. For that very reason, the urge to seek a path of spiritual light can be a subtle temptation to sin. It certainly is sin if it means a frank rejection of the burden of our age, an escape into unreality and spiritual illusion, so as not to share the misery of other men.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Father, Mean

  11 Copy quote

• To be unknown to God is altogether too much privacy.

  Thomas Merton

  Too Much, Privacy

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.34, New Directions Publishing

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• A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God.

  Thomas Merton

  Humility, Humble, Men

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.190, New Directions Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• The only unhappiness is not to love God.

  Thomas Merton

  God Love, Unhappiness

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• To those who have no personal experience of this revolutionary aspect of Christian truth, but who see only the outer crust of dead, human conservatism that tends to form around the Church the way barnacles gather on the hull of a ship, all this talk about dynamism sounds foolish.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Church, Way

  Thomas Merton (2003). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.148, Shambhala Publications

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• You will never be able to have perfect interior peace and recollection unless you are detached even from the desire of peace and recollection. You will never be able to pray perfectly until you are detached from the pleasures of prayer.

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Perfect, Desire

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

  4 Copy quote

• To find love I must enter into the sanctuary where it is hidden, which is the mystery of God.

  Thomas Merton

  Finding Love, Sanctuary, Mystery

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.61, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• O God, my God, the night has values that the day never dreamed of.

  Thomas Merton

  Night, Values

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• Charity is without fear: having given all that it has, it has nothing left to lose.

  Thomas Merton

  Charity, Given, Loses

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.174, Shambhala Publications

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• For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious "faith" of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion.

  Thomas Merton

  Mean, Acceptance, Doubt

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

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• Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.

  Thomas Merton

  Loneliness, Being Alone, Profound

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.81, New Directions Publishing

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• It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else's life? His sanctity will never be yours; you must have the humility to work out your own salvation in a darkness where you are absolutely alone.

  Thomas Merton

  Humility, Journey, Men

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.100, New Directions Publishing

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• I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not ask of me.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Thorns, Penance

  Thomas Merton (1974). “A Thomas Merton Reader”, Image

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• The end of the world will be legal.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, World, End Of The World

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• One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendour that is all around us.

  Thomas Merton

  Beauty, Reality, Important

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.33, Shambhala Publications

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• Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten. Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past. A memory that is not alive to the present does not remember the here and now, does not remember its true identity, is not memory at all. He who remembers nothing but facts and past events, and is never brought back into the present, is a victim of amnesia.

  Thomas Merton

  Memories, Past, True Identity

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

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• Love is perfect in proportion to it's freedom.

  Thomas Merton

  Best Love, Love Is, Perfect

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.139, Shambhala Publications

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• God Himself begins to live in me not only as my Creator but as my other and true self.

  Thomas Merton

  Self, True Self, Creator

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.41, New Directions Publishing

  5 Copy quote

• Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in the purity of our love for God, and this pure love is a delicate plant that grows best where there is plenty of time for it to mature

  Thomas Merton

  Love Is, Perfection, Our Love

  Thomas Merton (1960). “Spiritual Direction and Meditation”, p.85, Liturgical Press

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