Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 17

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It is both dangerous and easy to hate man as he is because he is not what he ought to be. If we do not first respect what he is we will never suffer him to become what he ought to be: in our impatience we do away with him altogether.

Thomas Merton

Hate, Men, Suffering

Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.142, Image

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If you have never had any distractions you don't know how to pray.

Thomas Merton

Praying, Distraction, Know How

Thomas Merton (2012). “On Christian Contemplation”, p.27, New Directions Publishing

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Very well, then: why are you attached to any one book, or to the words and ways of one saint when he himself tells you to let them go and walk in simplicity? To hang on to him as if to make a method of him is to contradict him and to go in the opposite direction to the one in which he would have you travel.

Thomas Merton

Book, Opposites, Simplicity

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For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to another. If my heart does not first belong to me, how can I give it to another?

Thomas Merton

Heart, Giving, Doe

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.28, Shambhala Publications

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It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God.

Thomas Merton

Christian, Spiritual, Ordinary

Thomas Merton (1963). “Life and Holiness”, [New York] : Herder and Herder

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The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of a certain type of Christian thought has seriously impaired this capacity, which nonviolence must recover.

Thomas Merton

Christian, Humility, Mind

Thomas Merton (1976). “Thomas Merton: On Peace”, Andrew Mowbray Incorporated, Publishers

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How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books. They make us think that we really understand things of which we have no practical knowledge at all.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Book, Thinking

Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.249, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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The humble person receives praise the way a clean window takes the light of the sun. The truer and more intense the light is, the less you see of the glass.

Thomas Merton

Humble, Glasses, Light

Thomas Merton (1972). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.189, New Directions Publishing

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True happiness is not found in any other reward than that of being united with God. If I seek some other reward besides God Himself, I may get my reward but I cannot be happy.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, May, Rewards

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.56, Shambhala Publications

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None of our prayers should ever be petitions for our own needs: for this is only another subtle way of trying to put ourselves on the same plane as God — acting as if we had no needs, as if we were not creatures, not dependent on Him.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Prayer, Pride

"The seven storey mountain".

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Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own idea of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are.

Thomas Merton

Christian, Wisdom, Greatness

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

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The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all by living.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Analysis, Firsts

Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.8, Sounds True

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I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process. Reason is a faculty, reasoning an exercise of that faculty. Reasoning proceeds from one truth to another by means of argumentation. This generally involves the whole mind in labor and complexity. But reason does not exist merely in order to engage in reasoning. The process is a means to an end. The true fulfillment of reason as a faculty is found when it can embrace the truth simply and without labor in the light of single intuition.

Thomas Merton

Mean, Exercise, Light

Thomas Merton (2002). “The Ascent to Truth”, p.213, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast.

Thomas Merton

Christian, Joy, Ashes

Thomas Merton (2010). “Seasons of Celebration”, p.100, Macmillan

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The camera does not know what it takes; it captures materials with which you reconstruct, not so much what you saw as what you thought you saw. Hence the best photography is aware, mindful, of illusion and uses illusion, permitting and encouraging it - especially unconscious and powerful illusions that are not usually admitted on the scene.

Thomas Merton

Photography, Powerful, Cameras

Thomas Merton (1975). “The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton”, p.153, New Directions Publishing

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Love is not a mere emotion or sentiment. It is the lucid and ardent responses of the whole person to a value that is revealed to him as perfect.

Thomas Merton

Love, Perfect, Emotion

Thomas Merton (1998). “Contemplation in a World of Action: Second Edition, Restored and Corrected”, p.26, University of Notre Dame Pess

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It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives.

Thomas Merton

Creating, Tasks, Mindfulness

Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.202, Macmillan

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The fruitfulness of our lives depends in large measure in our ability to doubt our own words and to question the value of our own work. The man who completely trusts his own estimate of himself is doomed to sterility.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Men, Doubt

Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

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The evil in the world is all of our own making, and it proceeds entirely from our ruthless, senseless, wasteful, destructive, and suicidal neglect of our own being.

Thomas Merton

Suicidal, Evil, World

Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.222, Image

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... but any fool knows that you don't need money to get enjoyment out of life.

Thomas Merton

Life, Needs, Fool

Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.29, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two.

Thomas Merton

Distance, Loss, Discovery

Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.45, Macmillan

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For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk, because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring any other man on this earth into the cloud where I dwell in Your light, that is, Your darkness, where I am lost and abashed. I cannot explain to any other man the anguish which is Your joy nor the loss which is the Possession of You, nor the distance from all things which is the arrival in You, nor the death which is the birth in You because I do not know anything about it myself and all I know is that I wish it were over - I wish it were begun.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Distance, Loss

Thomas Merton (1974). “A Thomas Merton Reader”, Image

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There is a logic of language and a logic of mathematics.

Thomas Merton

Logic, Language, Mathematics

Thomas Merton (1995). “Run to the mountain: the story of a vocation”, Harpercollins

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If we live with possibilities we are exiles from the present which is given us by God to be our own, homeless and displaced in a future or a past which are not ours because they are always beyond our reach. The present is our right place, and we can lay hands on whatever it offers us.

Thomas Merton

Wisdom, Past, Hands

Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.231, Shambhala Publications

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My God, I pray better to you by breathing and walking than by talking, just as in choir I sing best when I am thinking about something else, or better still, praying.

Thomas Merton

Talking, Breathing, Praying

"Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk & Writer".

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Born: January 31, 1915
Died: December 10, 1968
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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