Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 20

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• The whole function of the life of prayer is, then, to enlighten and strengthen our conscience so that it not only knows and perceives the outward, written precepts of the moral and divine laws, but above all lives God's law in concrete reality by perfect and continual union with His will.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Prayer, Reality

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.42, Shambhala Publications

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• The imagination should be allowed a certain amount of time to browse around.

  Thomas Merton

  Imagination, Should, Certain

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• What does it mean to know and experience my own “nothingness?” It is not enough to turn away in disgust from my illusions and faults and mistakes, to separate myself from them as if they were not, and as if I were someone other than myself. This kind of self-annihilati on is only a worse illusion, it is a pretended humility which, by saying “I am nothing” I mean in effect “I wish I were not what I am.

  Thomas Merton

  Mistake, Mean, Humility

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.49, Macmillan

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• Solitude is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient solitude to develop the inner life of the persons who compose it, they rebel and seek false solitudes.

  Thomas Merton

  Solitude, Rebel, Failing

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.271, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.

  Thomas Merton

  Silence, Grace, May

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.179, Macmillan

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• Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Men, Meditation

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.54, Macmillan

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• Grains of error planted innocently in a well-kept greenhouse can become giant poisonous trees.

  Thomas Merton

  Errors, Tree, Giants

  Thomas Merton (1993). “The Courage for Truth: Letters to Writers”, p.293, Macmillan

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• I shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand; but it is my shortcut to your soul.

  Thomas Merton

  Loneliness, Soul, Solitude

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• If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our work.

  Thomas Merton

  Silence, Doe, Bless

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.134, Shambhala Publications

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• The secret of my full identity is hidden in Him. He alone can make me who I am, or rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be. But unless I desire this identity and work to find it with Him and in Him, the work will never be done

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Who I Am, Secret

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.33, New Directions Publishing

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• In our creation, God asked a question and in our truly living; God answers the question.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Answers, Creation

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• But precisely this illusion that everything is "clear" is what is blinding us all. It is a serious temptation, and it is a subtle form of pride and worldly love of power and revenge.

  Thomas Merton

  Revenge, Pride, Temptation

  Thomas Merton (1995). “Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis”, p.183, Macmillan

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• ... Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial you have to use not a shadow but a sign, not the limitation but the image. The image is a new and different reality, and of course it does not convey an impression of some object, but the mind of the subject; and that is something else again.

  Thomas Merton

  Reality, Mind, Shadow

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• We love the things we pretend to laugh at.

  Thomas Merton

  Laughing

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.204, Shambhala Publications

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• If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

  Thomas Merton

  Political, Want, Study

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• Violence is essentially wordless. and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.

  Thomas Merton

  Communication, Broken, Violence

  Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton (1965). “Gandhi on Non-violence”, p.7, New Directions Publishing

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• The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Evil, Temptation

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• In meditative prayer, one thinks and speaks not only with the mind and lips, but in a certain sense with one's whole being... All good meditative prayer is a conversation of our entire self to God.

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Thinking, Self

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• Because You have called me here not to wear a label by which I can recognize myself and place myself in some kind of a category. You do not want me to be thinking about what I am, but about what You are. Or rather, You do not even want me to be thinking about anything much: for You would raise me above the level of thought. And if I am always trying to figure out what I am and where I am and why I am, how will that work be done?

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Thinking, Always Trying

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The seven storey mountain”, Harcourt

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• There is not true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude.

  Thomas Merton

  Soul, Solitude, Intimacy

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.175, Shambhala Publications

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• In all His acts God orders all things, whether good or evil, for the good of those who know Him and seek Him and who strive to bring their own freedom under obedience to His divine purpose. All that is done by the will of God in secret is done for His glory and for the good of those whom He has chosen to share in His glory.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Order, Evil

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.55, Shambhala Publications

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• If there was no other proof of the infinite patience of God, a very good one could be found in His toleration of the pictures that are painted of Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Infinite, Proof, Found

  Thomas Merton (1948). “Figures for an apocalypse”

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• Pardon all runners, All speechless, alien winds, All mad waters. Pardon their impulses, Their wild attitudes, Their young flights, their reticence. When a message has no clothes on How can it be spoken.

  Thomas Merton

  Attitude, Wind, Clothes

  Thomas Merton (1980). “The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton”, p.351, New Directions Publishing

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• To be alone by being part of the universe-fitting in completely to an environment of woods and silence and peace. Everything you do becomes a unity and a prayer. Unity within and without.

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Silence, Unity

  Thomas Merton (2009). “A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life, The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3: 1952-1960”, p.47, Harper Collins

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• The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a person, more truly and perfectly himself: for his personality and individuality are perfected in their true order, the spiritual, interior order.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Order, Personality

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The seven storey mountain”, Harcourt

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