Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 20

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• It is by desiring to grow in love that we receive the Holy Spirit, and the thirst for more charity is the effect of this more abundant reception.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Charity, Spirit

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.190, Shambhala Publications

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• Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice.

  Thomas Merton

  Peace, Sacrifice, Heroism

  Thomas Merton (2010). “The Nonviolent Alternative”, p.35, Macmillan

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• I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.

  Thomas Merton

  People, Body, Fancy

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.24, Shambhala Publications

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• If we examine ourselves carefully we shall see most of us have an enormous amount of unfinished business...We have to be free so that we can just step across the line and that's it. That is what real freedom is.

  Thomas Merton

  Real, Unfinished Business, Lines

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• It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverance for the solitude of others. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

  Thomas Merton

  Single, Brother, Silence

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

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• To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor.

  Thomas Merton

  Responsibility, Decision, Faces

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.74, New Directions Publishing

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• Cupidity...takes created things for ends in themselves, which they are not. The will that seeks rest in creatures for their own sake stops on the way to its true end, terminates in a value which does not exist, and thus frustrates all its deepest capacities for happiness and peace.

  Thomas Merton

  Doe, Sake, Way

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• How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books. They make us think that we really understand things of which we have no practical knowledge at all.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Book, Thinking

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.249, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Love is free; it does not depend on the desirability of its object, but loves for love's sake.

  Thomas Merton

  Love Is, Doe, Sake

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

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• My best writing has always been in journals.

  Thomas Merton

  Writing, Journal

  Thomas Merton, Lawrence Cunningham (1996). “A search for solitude: pursuing the monk's true life”, Harper San Francisco

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• Curiously, the most serious religious people, or the most concerned scholars, those who constantly read the Bible as a matter of professional or pious duty, can often manage to evade a radically involved dialogue with the book they are questioning.

  Thomas Merton

  Religious, Book, People

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• The logic of the poet - that is, the logic of language or the experience itself - develops the way a living organism grows: it spreads out towards what it loves, and is heliotropic, like a plant.

  Thomas Merton

  Way, Logic, Language

  "The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton". Book by Thomas Merton, 1959.

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• The only true liberty is in the service of that which is beyond all limits, beyond all definitions, beyond all human appreciation: that which is All, and which therefore is no limited or individual thing: The All is no-thing, for if it were to be a single thing separated from all other things, it would not be All.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Appreciation, Liberty

  Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.58, Sounds True

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• This is the crucifixion of Christ: in which He dies again and again in the individuals who were made to share the joy and freedom of His grace, and who deny Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Crucifixion Of Christ, Joy, Grace

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.158, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Good moral actions are not enough. Everything in us, from the very depths, must be cleansed and reordered.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Depth, Action

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• One thing is certain: the humility of faith, if it is followed by the proper consequences-by the acceptance of the work and sacrifice demanded by our providential task-will do far more to launch us into the full current of historical reality than the pompous rationalizations of politicians who think they are somehow the directors and manipulators of history.

  Thomas Merton

  Humility, Acceptance, Sacrifice

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• 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

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• The Bible is not primarily a written or printed text to be scrutinized in private, in a scholar's study or a contemplative cell. It is a body of oral messages, announcements, prophecies, promulgations, recitals, histories, songs of praise, lamentations, etc., which are meant either to be uttered or at least read aloud, or chanted, or sung, or recited in a community convoked for the purpose of a living celebration.

  Thomas Merton

  Song, Cells, Community

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• We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of His reality, our silence in the presence of His infinitely rich silence, our joy in the bosom of the serene darkness in which His light holds us absorbed, it is all this that praises Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Acceptance, Reality

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

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• The imagination should be allowed a certain amount of time to browse around.

  Thomas Merton

  Imagination, Should, Certain

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• Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Men, Meditation

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.54, Macmillan

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• In our creation, God asked a question and in our truly living; God answers the question.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Answers, Creation

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• The whole aim of Zen is not to make foolproof statements about experience, but to come to direct grips with reality without the mediation of logical verbalizing.

  Thomas Merton

  Reality, Logical, Mediation

  John C. H. Wu, Jingxiong Wu, Thomas Merton, Kenneth Kraft (2003). “The Golden Age of Zen: Zen Masters of the T'Ang Dynasty”, p.4, World Wisdom, Inc

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• Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Artist, Alchemist

  Thomas Merton, Patrick Hart (1985). “The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton”, p.379, New Directions Publishing

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• If you want to have a spiritual life you must unify your life. A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Want, Life Is

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

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