Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 3

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• Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

  Thomas Merton

  Peace, Hate, War

  245 Copy quote

• Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Men, Risk

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

  77 Copy quote

• Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.

  Thomas Merton

  Love Is, Making Love, Getting What You Want

  Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.40, Macmillan

  107 Copy quote

• The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Firsts, Life Is

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.52, Macmillan

  97 Copy quote

• In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your piece of heart. As soon as you compare that shadow with the shadows of other people, you lose all joy, because you have begun to trade in unrealities and there is no joy in things that do not exist.

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Humility, Thinking

  45 Copy quote

• True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Encounters, Christ

  "He is risen".

  35 Copy quote

• We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events ... The only thing is we don't see it ... I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

  Thomas Merton

  People, Shining, Heaven

  25 Copy quote

• A faith that is afraid of other people is no faith at all.

  Thomas Merton

  People

  "Seeds".

  63 Copy quote

• Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith.

  Thomas Merton

  Selfish, Believe, Men

  37 Copy quote

• The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear Brothers [and Sisters], we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.

  Thomas Merton

  Brother, Communication, Unity

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.13, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  34 Copy quote

• Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace.

  Thomas Merton

  Gratitude, Grace, Moments

  72 Copy quote

• For although God is right with us and in us and out of us and all through us, we have to go on journeys to find him.

  Thomas Merton

  Journey, Goes On

  31 Copy quote

• A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, God, Spiritual

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

  60 Copy quote

• Love in fact is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of content and become mere illusions.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Spiritual, Exercise

  "The Wisdom of the Desert".

  30 Copy quote

• I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.

  Thomas Merton

  Buddhist, Buddhism, Christianity

  58 Copy quote

• From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.

  Thomas Merton

  Pieces, World, Mouths

  40 Copy quote

• Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves.

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Capacity To Love, Giving

  Thomas Merton (2010). “Seasons of Celebration”, p.103, Macmillan

  24 Copy quote

• In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, to work with expecting immediate reward, to love without an instant satisfaction, and to exist without any special recognition. It is only when we are detached from ourselves that we can be at peace with ourselves.

  Thomas Merton

  Order, Special, Rewards

  19 Copy quote

• It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.

  Thomas Merton

  Brother, Silence, Solitude

  20 Copy quote

• The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility.

  Thomas Merton

  Sweet, Heart, Men

  Thomas Merton (1962). “Seeds of contemplation”

  78 Copy quote

• It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as Gods will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe youtry to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as Gods will yourself!

  Thomas Merton

  War, Believe, Roof Over Your Head

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.179, New Directions Publishing

  96 Copy quote

• Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

  Thomas Merton

  Art, Fools Day, Finding Yourself

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.35, Shambhala Publications

  114 Copy quote

• It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.

  Thomas Merton

  Humanity, Belief, Awareness

  102 Copy quote

• Weaknesses and deficiencies . . . play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.

  Thomas Merton

  Play, Important, Weakness

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.22, Shambhala Publications

  60 Copy quote

• The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

  Thomas Merton

  God, Kindness, Compassion

  Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.22, Sounds True

  68 Copy quote

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