Thomas Merton Quotes

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• Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Spiritual, Wisdom

  Thomas Merton (1976). “The Power and Meaning of Love”

  303 Copy quote

• In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.

  Thomas Merton

  Discipline, Confusion, Silence

  206 Copy quote

• You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

  Thomas Merton

  Moving On, Faith, Courage

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.206, Image

  322 Copy quote

• The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

  Thomas Merton

  Relationship, Spiritual, Inspirational Love

  337 Copy quote
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  The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Emotional, Mind

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.72, Image

  191 Copy quote

• My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your Will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

  Thomas Merton

  Faith, Believe, Inspiration

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Dialogues with Silence: Prayers & Drawings”, p.8, Harper Collins

  376 Copy quote

• To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us - and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

  Thomas Merton

  Faith, Gratitude, Grateful

  189 Copy quote

• Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn't already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.

  Thomas Merton

  Wind, Tree, Forests

  114 Copy quote

• In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.

  Thomas Merton

  Silence, Objects, Cease

  113 Copy quote

• The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of contemporary violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activity neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

  Thomas Merton

  Roots, Demand, Want

  99 Copy quote

• People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.

  Thomas Merton

  Wall, Climbing, People

  165 Copy quote

• When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.

  Thomas Merton

  Grace

  61 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

  21 Copy quote

• Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Valentines Day, Fate

  Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.32, Macmillan

  205 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

  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

  43 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

  38 Copy quote

• Prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him...who loves us, who is near to us.

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Way

  31 Copy quote

• Our real journey in life is interior; It is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary to respond to that action.

  Thomas Merton

  Real, Heart, Journey

  Thomas Merton (1975). “The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton”, p.296, New Directions Publishing

  23 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

  21 Copy quote

• If you yourself are at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.

  Thomas Merton

  Peace, World, Ifs

  22 Copy quote

• Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.

  Thomas Merton

  Ordinary, Alive, Ordinary Things

  58 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Merton

  People

  "Seeds".

  67 Copy quote

• The sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Wind, Sky

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.107, Macmillan

  22 Copy quote

• Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.

  Thomas Merton

  Journey, Differences, Joy

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

  83 Copy quote

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