Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 6

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• We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of others and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.

  Thomas Merton

  Forgiveness, Hate, Compassion

  53 Copy quote

• Happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found.

  Thomas Merton

  Found

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.1, Shambhala Publications

  5 Copy quote

• The gift of love is the gift of the power and capacity to love, and therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received.

  Thomas Merton

  Positive, Love Is, Law Of Attraction

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.28, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I came with the notion of perhaps saying something for monks and to monks of all religions because I am supposed to be a monk. ... My dear brothers, WE ARE ALREADY ONE. BUT WE IMAGINE THAT WE ARE NOT. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are

  Thomas Merton

  Brother, Unity, Imagine

  15 Copy quote

• If it so happened that I had once written a best-seller, this was a pure accident, due to inattention and naivete, and I would take very good care never to do the same again. If I had a message for my contemporaries, I said, it was surely this: Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success.

  Thomas Merton

  Cost, Care, Shapes

  Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

  66 Copy quote

• True happiness is found in unselfish Love, A love which increases in proportion as it is shared.

  Thomas Merton

  Happiness And Love, Unselfish Love, True Happiness

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.1, Shambhala Publications

  55 Copy quote

• The only way to make a man worthy of love is by loving him.

  Thomas Merton

  Love Is, Men, Way

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• The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Sadness, Reality

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

  12 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

  29 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

  5 Copy quote

• Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint...They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else's experiences or write somebody else's poems.

  Thomas Merton

  Religious, Writing, Artist

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.98, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Silence, Sound

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

  7 Copy quote

• Perhaps I am stronger than I think.

  Thomas Merton

  Strength, Being Strong, Confidence

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.143, Image

  50 Copy quote

• It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, now I realize what we all are . If only they [people] could all see themselves as they really are I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth This little point is the pure glory of God in us. It is in everybody.

  Thomas Merton

  Fall, Destiny, Race

  26 Copy quote

• When we are strong, we are always much greater than the things that happen to us.

  Thomas Merton

  Strength, Strong, Happens

  Thomas Merton (2002). “Seeds”

  11 Copy quote

• Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.

  Thomas Merton

  Giving Up, Self, Doe

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.33, Macmillan

  14 Copy quote

• A man searching for enlightenment is like a man sitting on an Ass in search of an Ass

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Enlightenment, Sitting

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• Modern man believes he is fruitful and productive when his ego is aggressively affirmed, when he is visibly active, and when his action produces obvious results.

  Thomas Merton

  Believe, Men, Ego

  Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.27, Macmillan

  24 Copy quote

• The meaning of life is found in openness to being and "being present" in full awareness.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Awareness, Found

  Thomas Merton (2010). “Zen and the Birds of Appetite”, p.81, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• The simplest and most effective way to sanctity is to disappear into the background of ordinary every day routine.

  Thomas Merton

  Ordinary, Routine, Way

  Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.47, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• It's a risky thing to pray and the danger is that our very prayers get between God and us. The great thing in prayer is not to pray, but to go directly to God. . . . The fact is, though, that if you descend into the depths of your own spirit and arrive somewhere near the center of what you are, you are confronted with the inescapable truth that, at the very root of your existence, you are in constant and immediate contact with the infinite power of God.

  Thomas Merton

  Prayer, Roots, Facts

  6 Copy quote

• In an age where there is much talk about "being yourself," I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else.

  Thomas Merton

  Being Yourself, Age, Littles

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

  19 Copy quote

• My spiritual goal is to one day walk into God and disappear.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Goal, One Day

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• Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.

  Thomas Merton

  Nice, Simple, Meditation

  20 Copy quote

• To hope is to risk frustration. Make up your mind to risk frustration.

  Thomas Merton

  Frustration, Risk, Mind

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.104, New Directions Publishing

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