Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly
  themselves.

  Thomas Merton

  Relationship, Unconditional Love, Reflection

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.177, Shambhala Publications

  24 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

• 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

• A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Men, Succeed

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.133, Shambhala Publications

  33 Copy quote

• I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Race, People

  55 Copy quote

• When your tongue is silent, you can rest in the silence of the forest. When your imagination is silent, the forest speaks to you. It tells you of its unreality and of the Reality of God. But when your mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.

  Thomas Merton

  Real, Imagination, Silence

  Thomas Merton (1979). “The Sign of Jonas”, Mariner Books

  21 Copy quote

• It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as Gods will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent. But if you want them to believe youtry to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as Gods will yourself!

  Thomas Merton

  War, Believe, Roof Over Your Head

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.179, New Directions Publishing

  97 Copy quote

• The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had chosen suffering in preference to the joys of union with God, the Lord turned suffering itself into a way by which man could come to the perfect knowledge of God.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Pain, Fall

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.92, Shambhala Publications

  31 Copy quote

• Surrender your own poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you and offers you an understanding and compassion which are like nothing you have ever found in a book or heard in a sermon.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Book, Love You

  45 Copy quote

• Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard at least occasionally.

  Thomas Merton

  Inspirational, Yoga, Voice

  19 Copy quote

• Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.

  Thomas Merton

  Doors, Knowing, Way

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.136, Macmillan

  36 Copy quote

• The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Wisdom, Real

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.387, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  24 Copy quote

• From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.

  Thomas Merton

  Pieces, World, Mouths

  44 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

• A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, God, Spiritual

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.64, Macmillan

  64 Copy quote

• In the devil's theology, the important thing is to be absolutely right and to prove that everybody else is absolutely wrong.

  Thomas Merton

  Important, Devil, Theology

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.96, New Directions Publishing

  23 Copy quote

• It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Humility, Keys

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.181, New Directions Publishing

  48 Copy quote

• Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Country, Art

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

  23 Copy quote

• At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our life, which is inaccessable to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.

  Thomas Merton

  God, Spiritual, Truth

  Thomas Merton (2012). “On Christian Contemplation”, p.41, New Directions Publishing

  64 Copy quote

• It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.

  Thomas Merton

  Brother, Silence, Solitude

  22 Copy quote

• A faith that is afraid of other people is no faith at all.

  Thomas Merton

  People

  "Seeds".

  67 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".

  39 Copy quote

• We are already ONE. We just think we are separate.

  Thomas Merton

  Thinking

  24 Copy quote

• Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Gratitude, Realization

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.1, New Directions Publishing

  34 Copy quote

• Let me rest in Your will and be silent. Then the light of Your joy will warm my life. Its fire will burn in my heart and shine for Your glory. This is what I live for. Amen, amen.

  Thomas Merton

  Heart, Fire, Light

  Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.89, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

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