Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Life, Wisdom

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.60, New Directions Publishing

  54 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

  248 Copy quote

• Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.

  Thomas Merton

  Love Is, Making Love, Getting What You Want

  Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.40, Macmillan

  109 Copy quote

• Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.

  Thomas Merton

  Compassion, Awareness, Loving Kindness

  166 Copy quote

• It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.

  Thomas Merton

  Humanity, Belief, Awareness

  104 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”

  48 Copy quote

• The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility.

  Thomas Merton

  Sweet, Heart, Men

  Thomas Merton (1962). “Seeds of contemplation”

  80 Copy quote

• We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events ... The only thing is we don't see it ... I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.

  Thomas Merton

  People, Shining, Heaven

  27 Copy quote

• When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.

  Thomas Merton

  Country, Peace, War

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.121, New Directions Publishing

  49 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

  182 Copy quote

• The purpose of our lives is to find the purpose of our lives.

  Thomas Merton

  Purpose, Life Is, Our Lives

  35 Copy quote

• Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the best of intentions a spiritual man finds himself exhausted and deadened and debased by the constant noise of machines and loudspeakers, the dead air and the glaring lights of offices and shops, the everlasting suggestion of advertising and propaganda. The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God and from the spirit into the wilderness of neurosis.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Men, Thinking

  31 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

  98 Copy quote

• In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your piece of heart. As soon as you compare that shadow with the shadows of other people, you lose all joy, because you have begun to trade in unrealities and there is no joy in things that do not exist.

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Humility, Thinking

  47 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

  19 Copy quote

• Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Ideas

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.15, New Directions Publishing

  48 Copy quote

• When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Children, Heart

  43 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

  38 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

  50 Copy quote

• Before we can realize who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger.

  Thomas Merton

  Thinking, Awakening, Facts

  "The New Man".

  63 Copy quote

• Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Men, Risk

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.21, Shambhala Publications

  80 Copy quote

• Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

  Thomas Merton

  Art, Fools Day, Finding Yourself

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.35, Shambhala Publications

  119 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

  60 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

  57 Copy quote

• Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.

  Thomas Merton

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Fake People

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.119, Shambhala Publications

  80 Copy quote

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