Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 4

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• And 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.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Communication, Levels

  "The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters".

  16 Copy quote

• The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Hurt, Insignificant Things

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.116, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  58 Copy quote

• Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard at least occasionally.

  Thomas Merton

  Inspirational, Yoga, Voice

  18 Copy quote

• The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly
  themselves.

  Thomas Merton

  Relationship, Unconditional Love, Reflection

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.177, Shambhala Publications

  22 Copy quote

• We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.

  Thomas Merton

  Greatness, Achieve, Interest

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.128, Shambhala Publications

  34 Copy quote

• Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am.

  Thomas Merton

  Happiness, Ambition, Mindfulness

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

  28 Copy quote

• It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Humility, Keys

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.181, New Directions Publishing

  46 Copy quote

• Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Gratitude, Realization

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.1, New Directions Publishing

  31 Copy quote

• Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels that you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you are capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Thinking, Political

  Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

  47 Copy quote

• We are already ONE. We just think we are separate.

  Thomas Merton

  Thinking

  22 Copy quote

• Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Violence, Cease

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.129, Macmillan

  42 Copy quote

• My spiritual goal is to one day walk into God and disappear.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Goal, One Day

  12 Copy quote

• We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God

  Thomas Merton

  Peace, Catholic, Humanity

  Thomas Merton (1994). “Ascent To Truth”, p.246, Bloomsbury Publishing

  37 Copy quote

• The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.

  Thomas Merton

  Hate, Men, Sweat

  Thomas Merton, Robert Inchausti (2007). “Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing”, p.72, Shambhala Publications

  24 Copy quote

• When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.

  Thomas Merton

  Real, Imagination, Silence

  Thomas Merton (1979). “The Sign of Jonas”, Mariner Books

  18 Copy quote

• Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.

  Thomas Merton

  Nice, Simple, Meditation

  20 Copy quote

• May God prevent us from becoming "right-thinking men"-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Thinking, Police

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.248, Image

  82 Copy quote

• Christ is born to us today, in order that he may appear to the whole world through us.

  Thomas Merton

  Order, World, May

  Thomas Merton (2010). “Seasons of Celebration”, p.98, Macmillan

  12 Copy quote

• The biggest disease in North America is busyness.

  Thomas Merton

  Faith, Inspiration, America

  5 Copy quote

• A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Wisdom, Men

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.99, Macmillan

  28 Copy quote

• Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Valentines Day, Care

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.3, Shambhala Publications

  16 Copy quote

• For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Fall, Air

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.218, Shambhala Publications

  46 Copy quote

• Action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring.

  Thomas Merton

  Spring, Catholic, Action

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.73, Shambhala Publications

  15 Copy quote

• We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, True Life, Life Is

  Thomas Merton (2008). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.35, Sounds True

  66 Copy quote

• If we wait for some people to become agreeable or attractive before we begin to love them, we will never begin. If we are content to give them a cold impersonal 'charity' that is merely a matter of obligation, we will not trouble to understand them or to sympathize with them at all. And in that case we will not really love them, because love implies an efficacious will not only to do good to others exteriorly but also to find some good in them to which we can respond."

  Thomas Merton

  People, Giving, Waiting

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.179, Shambhala Publications

  29 Copy quote

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