Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 10

Quotes about:

• The root of war is fear.

  Thomas Merton

  War, Roots

  Thomas Merton (1995). “Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis”, p.50, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  9 Copy quote

• One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life solves them for you.

  Thomas Merton

  Contemplative Life, Law, Down And

  Thomas Merton, Robert Inchausti (2007). “Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing”, p.23, Shambhala Publications

  24 Copy quote

• In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for 'finding himself.' If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.

  Thomas Merton

  Responsibility, Self Improvement, Analysis

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.12, Shambhala Publications

  54 Copy quote

• The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love, and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.

  Thomas Merton

  Sweet, Heart, Dark

  Thomas Merton (1997). “Dancing In The Water Of Life Volume 5:1963-1965: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage”, HarperOne

  8 Copy quote

• Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Ambition, Way

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

  11 Copy quote

• On Pride: This sickness is most dangerous when it succeeds in looking like humility. When a proud man thinks he is humble his case is hopeless.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Humble, Humility

  Thomas Merton (1962). “Seeds of contemplation”

  19 Copy quote

• As long as I am content to know that He is infinitely greater than I, and that I cannot know Him unless He shows himself to me, I will have Peace, and He will be near me and in me, and I will rest in Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Long, Shows, Knows

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.112, Macmillan

  10 Copy quote

• You must realize that it is the ordinary way of God's dealings with us that our ideas do not work out speedily and efficiently as we would like them to. The reason for this is not only the loving wisdom of God, but also the fact that our acts have to fit into a great complex pattern that we cannot possibly understand. I have learned over the years that Providence is always a whole lot wiser than any of us, and that there are always not only good reasons, but the very best reasons for the delays and blocks that often seem to us so frustrating and absurd.

  Thomas Merton

  Block, Years, Ideas

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.862, Macmillan

  12 Copy quote

• Faith is the door to the full inner life of the Church, a life which includes not only access to an authoritative teaching but above all to a deep personal experience which is at once unique and yet shared by the whole Body of Christ, in the Spirit of Christ.

  Thomas Merton

  Teaching, Unique, Doors

  John C. H. Wu, Jingxiong Wu, Thomas Merton, Kenneth Kraft (2003). “The Golden Age of Zen: Zen Masters of the T'Ang Dynasty”, p.21, World Wisdom, Inc

  8 Copy quote

• The question of love is one that cannot be evaded. Whether or not you claim to be interested in it from the moment you are alive you are bound to be concerned with love because love is not just something that happens to you: It is a certain special way of being alive. Love is in fact an intensification of life a completeness a fullness a wholeness of life.

  Thomas Merton

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Love Is

  15 Copy quote

• To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.

  Thomas Merton

  Light, Events, Hell

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.24, Shambhala Publications

  8 Copy quote

• We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.

  Thomas Merton

  Real, Decisions You Make, Self

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.25, Shambhala Publications

  16 Copy quote

• The least of the work of learning is done in classrooms.

  Thomas Merton

  Learning, Done, Classroom

  "Love and Living".

  9 Copy quote

• It is true that neither the ancient wisdoms nor the modern sciences are complete in themselves. They do not stand alone. They call for one another. Wisdom without science is unable to penetrate the full sapiential meaning of the created and the material cosmos. Science without wisdom leaves man enslaved to a world of unrelated objects in which there is no way of discovering (or creating) order and deep significance in man's own pointless existence. (p. 4)

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Men, Order

  16 Copy quote

• In the end, it's the reality of personal realtionships that save everything.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Reality, Ends

  8 Copy quote

• The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the other.... The whole purpose of life is to live by love.

  Thomas Merton

  Compassion, Ideas, Purpose

  14 Copy quote

• The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals, although those things are good and useful in themselves--and perhaps very badly needed in India: they want to know if we have any saints to send them.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, School, Men

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.240, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  21 Copy quote

• The true inner self must be drawn up like a jewel from the bottom of the sea, rescued from confusion, from indistinction, from immersion in the common, the nondescript, the trivial, the sordid, the evanescent.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Self, Jewels

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.38, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness.

  Thomas Merton

  Inspirational, Visible, Wholeness

  "In the Dark Before Dawn: New Selected Poems of Thomas Merton".

  11 Copy quote

• A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God.

  Thomas Merton

  Humility, Humble, Men

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.190, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• Good moral actions are not enough. Everything in us, from the very depths, must be cleansed and reordered.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Depth, Action

  15 Copy quote

• I can depend less and less on my own power and sense of direction...It is so strange to advance backwards and get where you are going in a totally unexpected way

  Thomas Merton

  Way, Unexpected, Strange

  12 Copy quote

• As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I consider myself a saint? How can I consider myself a contemplative? For the self I bother about does not really exist, never will, never did except in my own imagination.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Self, Long

  9 Copy quote

• The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Dream, Mean

  22 Copy quote

• Love not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two.

  Thomas Merton

  Two, Doe, Compare

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.2, Shambhala Publications

  17 Copy quote

Page 10 of 25

First

← Prev

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin