Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 7

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• 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

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• He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination.

  Thomas Merton

  Imagination, Trust In God, Possession

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.13, Shambhala Publications

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• Perhaps I am stronger than I think.

  Thomas Merton

  Strength, Being Strong, Confidence

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

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• There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him.

  Thomas Merton

  Self, Problem, Existence

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.36, New Directions Publishing

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• 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”

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

  Thomas Merton

  Love Is, Men, Way

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

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Enlightenment, Sitting

  24 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

  57 Copy quote

• 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

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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

  26 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

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• Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Oneness, Grace

  Thomas Merton (2003). “The New Man”, p.29, Bloomsbury Publishing

  9 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 peace of heart.

  Thomas Merton

  Humility, Heart, Thinking

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.57, New Directions Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Wisdom, Men

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.99, Macmillan

  29 Copy quote

• Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or 'fight for.' It is indeed 'fighting for peace' that starts all the wars. What, after all, are the pretexts of all these Cold War crises, but 'fighting for peace?' Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world. Then share your peace with everyone, and everyone will be at peace.

  Thomas Merton

  War, Fighting, World

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• Take more time, cover less ground.

  Thomas Merton

  Patience, Focus, Mindfulness

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• If there is no silence beyond and within the many words of doctrine, there is no religion, only a religious ideology. For religion goes beyond words and actions, and attains to the ultimate Truth only in silence and Love.

  Thomas Merton

  Religious, Silence, And Love

  Thomas Merton, Robert Inchausti (2007). “Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing”, p.56, Shambhala Publications

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• The grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

  Thomas Merton

  Gratitude, Grateful, Differences

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.48, Macmillan

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• There are crimes which no one would commit as an individual which he willingly and bravely commits when acting in the name of his society, because he has been (too easily) convinced that evil is entirely different when it is done 'for the common good.'...one might point to the way in which racial hatreds and even persecution are admitted by people who consider themselves, and perhaps in some sense are, kind, tolerant, civilized and even humane.

  Thomas Merton

  Names, People, Evil

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• By reading the scriptures I am so renewed that all nature seems renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, a cooler blue, the trees a deeper green. The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.

  Thomas Merton

  Music, Reading, Blue

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• The things we really need come to us only as gifts, and in order to receive them as gifts we have to be open. In order to be open we have to renounce ourselves, in a sense we have to die to our image of ourselves, our autonomy, our fixation upon our self-willed identity.

  Thomas Merton

  Self, Order, Identity

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.224, Image

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• I believe we are going to have to prepare ourselves for the difficult and patient task of outgrowing rigid and intransigent nationalism, and work slowly towards a world federation of peaceful nations. How will this be possible? Don't ask me. I don't know. But unless we develop a moral, spiritual, and political wisdom that is proportionate to our technological skill, our skill may end us.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Peace

  Thomas Merton (1995). “Witness to Freedom: The Letters of Thomas Merton in Times of Crisis”, p.102, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• I am beginning to realize that "sanity" is no longer a value or an end in itself. The "sanity" of modern man is about as useful to him as the huge bulk and muscles of the dinosaur. If he were a little less sane, a little more doubtful, a little more aware of his absurdities and contradictions, perhaps there might be a possibility of his survival.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, People, Survival

  "Raids on the Unspeakable".

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• Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by force from outside. We impose it on our world and upon one another from within ourselves.

  Thomas Merton

  Our World, Anxiety, World

  Thomas Merton, M. Basil Pennington (2005). “Thomas Merton: I Have Seen what I was Looking for : Selected Spiritual Writings”, p.115, New City Press

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• Christ is born to us today, in order that he may appear to the whole world through us.

  Thomas Merton

  Order, World, May

  Thomas Merton (2010). “Seasons of Celebration”, p.98, Macmillan

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