Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 24

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Every other man is a piece of myself, for I am a part and a member of mankind.

Thomas Merton

Men, Pieces, Members

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.23, Shambhala Publications

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No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.

Thomas Merton

Life, Men, Long

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.11, Shambhala Publications

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Zen enriches no one. There is no body to be found. The birds may come and circle for a while in the place where it is thought to be. But they soon go elsewhere. When they are gone, the "nothing," the "no-body" that was there, suddenly appears. That is Zen. It was there all the time but the scavengers missed it, because it was not their kind of prey.

Thomas Merton

Circles, Bird, May

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October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful.

Thomas Merton

College, America, Looks

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

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I refuse to be misled by any kind of a mirage about any alleged success of what I write. Those things are too easily exaggerated, and even when they are true, they always mean less than they seem to.

Thomas Merton

Success, Writing, Mean

Thomas Merton (1996). “Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk & Writer”, Harper San Francisco

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A gentle sense of humor will be alert to detect anything that savors of a pious 'act' on the part of the penitent.

Thomas Merton

Sense Of Humor, Gentle, Theologian

Thomas Merton (1960). “Spiritual Direction and Meditation”, p.40, Liturgical Press

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Zen is consciousness unstructured by particular form or particular system, a trans-cultural, trans-religious, transformed consciousness.

Thomas Merton

Religious, Consciousness, Form

Thomas Merton (2000). “Thoughts On The East”, p.43, A&C Black

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The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a simple and individual response to reality, and even a tendency to moments of thoughtful silence and absorption. All these tendencies, however, are soon destroyed by the dominant culture. The child becomes a yelling, brash, false little monster, brandishing a toy gun or dressed up like some character he has seen on television.

Thomas Merton

Children, Character, Reality

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Whose silence are you?

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Silence

Thomas Merton, Lynn Szabo (2005). “In the Dark Before Dawn: New Selected Poems of Thomas Merton”, p.90, New Directions Publishing

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In any case, his religious teaching consisted mostly in more or less vague ethical remarks, an obscure mixture of ideals of English gentlemanliness and his favorite notions of personal hygiene. Everybody knew that his class was liable to degenerate into a demonstration of some practical points about rowing, with Buggy sitting on the table and showing us how to pull an oar.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Religious, Teaching

Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.106, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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It is the will of God that we live not only as rational beings, but as "new men" regenerated by the Holy Spirit in Christ. It is His will that we reach out for our inheritance, that we answer His call to be His sons. We are born men without our consent, but the consent to be sons of God has to be elicited by our own free will.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Son, Men

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.60, Shambhala Publications

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Everybody has an instinctive desire to do good things and avoid evil. But that desire is sterile as long as we have no experience of what it means to be good.

Thomas Merton

Mean, Long, Evil

Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.34, Macmillan

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O love-why can't you leave me alone? Which is a rhetorical question meaning: for heaven's sake, don't.

Thomas Merton

Love, Heaven, Leave Me Alone

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The center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth.

Thomas Merton

Sin, Illusion, Pure

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

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The lights of prayer that make us imagine we are beginning to be angels are sometimes only signs that we are finally beginning to be men. We do not have a high enough opinion of our own nature. We think we are at the gates of heaven and we are only just beginning to come into our own realm as free and intelligent beings.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Prayer, Angel

Thomas Merton (2002). “The Ascent to Truth”, p.209, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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It seems to me that the darkness that has troubled you ... comes from one very serious source. Without wanting to be in conflict with the truth and with the will of God, we are actually going against God's will and His teaching.

Thomas Merton

Teaching, Darkness, Serious

Thomas Merton (1995). “Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis”, p.182, Macmillan

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Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as if creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God.

Thomas Merton

Spiritual, Mean, Order

Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.21, New Directions Publishing

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For the sinful self is not my real self, it is not the self YOU have wanted for me, only the self that I have wanted : And I no longer want this false self. But now, Father, I come to You in your own Son's self ... and it is He Who Presents me to You.

Thomas Merton

Father, Real, Son

Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.82, Macmillan

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Each individual Christian and each new age of the Church has to make this rediscovery, this return to the source of Christian life.

Thomas Merton

Christian, Age, Church

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

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What is 'grace'? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are able to share in the infinitely selfless love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends. Indeed, outside of Him there is nothing, and whatever exists exists by His free gift of its being, so that one of the notions that is absolutely contradictory to the perfection of God is selfishness.

Thomas Merton

Selfish, Free Gifts, Perfection

Thomas Merton (1998). “The seven storey mountain”, Harcourt

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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

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God has brought me to Kentucky...the precise place he has chosen for my sanctification.

Thomas Merton

Kentucky, Chosen, Sanctification

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Show us your Christ, Lady, after this our exile, yes: but show Him to us also now, show Him to us here, while we are still wanderers.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Christ, Exile

Thomas Merton, M. Basil Pennington (2005). “Thomas Merton: I Have Seen what I was Looking for : Selected Spiritual Writings”, p.58, New City Press

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Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest.

Thomas Merton

Men, Facts, Made

Thomas Merton (2002). “The Ascent to Truth”, p.34, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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They were in the world and not of it--not because they were saints, but in a different way: because they were artists. The integrity of an artist lifts a man above the level of the world without delivering him from it.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Integrity, Artist

Thomas Merton, M. Basil Pennington (2005). “Thomas Merton: I Have Seen what I was Looking for : Selected Spiritual Writings”, p.22, New City Press

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Born: January 31, 1915
Died: December 10, 1968
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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