Thomas Merton Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  149 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

  250 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

  295 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

  284 Copy quote

• 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”

  229 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

  175 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

  168 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

  99 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

  84 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Merton

  Silence, Objects, Cease

  97 Copy quote

• 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".

  9 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

  138 Copy quote

• Our real journey in life is interior.

  Thomas Merton

  Real, Journey, Conformity

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

  11 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Merton

  Grace

  40 Copy quote

• Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Struggle, Reality

  "A Poetic Hope" by Cassidy Hall, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 8, 2017.

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  236 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".

  29 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

  64 Copy quote

• Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.

  Thomas Merton

  Thank You, Gratitude, Awakening

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.48, Macmillan

  53 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

  34 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

  96 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

  182 Copy quote

• ‎"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.

  Thomas Merton

  Jobs, Stopping, Worthy

  Thomas Merton (1976). “Disputed Questions”, p.143, Macmillan

  174 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

  15 Copy quote

• How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?

  Thomas Merton

  Thinking, Mind, Shadow

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.206, Shambhala Publications

  45 Copy quote

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