Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 8

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• Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.

  Thomas Merton

  Peace, Solitude, Looks

  Thomas Merton (2012). “On Christian Contemplation”, p.36, New Directions Publishing

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• The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Passion, Light

  Thomas Merton (2009). “A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk's True Life, The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3: 1952-1960”, p.39, Harper Collins

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• Thinking prevents the unconscious from speaking.

  Thomas Merton

  Thinking, Grace, Unconscious

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• There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

  Thomas Merton

  Self Esteem, People, Shining

  Thomas Merton (2009). “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, p.155, Image

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• Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some sense explains.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Art, Order

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.36, Shambhala Publications

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• To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law - the law of grace and love - but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Religious, Mean

  Thomas Merton (1975). “He is risen”, Tabor Pub

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• Love is the door to eternity.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Love Is, Doors

  Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.134, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• You must realize that it is the ordinary way of God's dealings with us that our ideas do not work out speedily and efficiently as we would like them to. The reason for this is not only the loving wisdom of God, but also the fact that our acts have to fit into a great complex pattern that we cannot possibly understand. I have learned over the years that Providence is always a whole lot wiser than any of us, and that there are always not only good reasons, but the very best reasons for the delays and blocks that often seem to us so frustrating and absurd.

  Thomas Merton

  Block, Years, Ideas

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.862, Macmillan

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• But it certainly is a wonderful thing to wake up suddenly in the solitude of the woods and look up at the sky and see the utter nonsense of everything including all the solemn stuff given out by professional asses about the spiritual life; and simply to burst out laughing, and laugh and laugh, with the sky and the trees because God is not in words, and not in systems, and not in liturgical movements, and not in "contemplation" with a big "C," or in asceticism or in anything like that, not even in the apostolate.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Laughter, Sky

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.35, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Atheist, Real

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.213, Shambhala Publications

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• To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect on me is to live on the doorstep of hell. Selfishness is doomed to frustration centered as it is upon a lie. To live exclusively for myself, I must make all things bend themselves to my will as if I were a god.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Lying, Frustration

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.24, Shambhala Publications

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• If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Money, Writing

  Thomas Merton, Robert Inchausti (2007). “Echoing Silence: Thomas Merton on the Vocation of Writing”, p.198, Shambhala Publications

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• Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in His Kingdom. Each one of us is called to a special place in the Kingdom. If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find it, we can never be completely happy. For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be.

  Thomas Merton

  Destiny, Special, Want

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.138, Shambhala Publications

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• The Holy Spirit is the most perfect gift of the Father to men, and yet He is the one gift which the Father gives most easily.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Father, Men

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.189, Shambhala Publications

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• Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.

  Thomas Merton

  Disappointment, Eye, Heart

  Thomas Merton (1990). “The School of Charity: The Letters Of Thomas Merton On Religious Renewal & Spiritual Direction”, p.292, Macmillan

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• My life is ... a mystery which I do not attempt to really understand, as though 1 were led by the hand in a night where I see nothing, but can fully depend on the love and protection of Him who guides me.

  Thomas Merton

  Night, Hands, Action

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.86, Macmillan

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• The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which he presents to the world, and to bring out his inner spiritual freedom, his inmost truth, which is what we call the likeness of Christ in his soul.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Attitude, Men

  Thomas Merton (1960). “Spiritual Direction and Meditation”, p.16, Liturgical Press

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• Some of us need to discover that we will not begin to live more fully until we have the courage to do and see and taste and experience much less than usual... And for a man who has let himself be drawn completely out of himself by his activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit still and rest, doing nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act he can perform.

  Thomas Merton

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Men

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• The importance of detachment from things, the importance of poverty, is that we are supposed to be free from things that we might prefer to people. Wherever things have become more important than people, we are in trouble. That is the crux of the whole matter.

  Thomas Merton

  People, Important, Might

  Thomas Merton (1989). “Thomas Merton in Alaska: Prelude to the Asian Journal : the Alaskan Conferences, Journals, and Letters”, p.97, New Directions Publishing

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• Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul.

  Thomas Merton

  Uplifting, Men, Soul

  Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton (2007). “Gandhi on Non-Violence”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

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• The God of peace is never glorified by human violence.

  Thomas Merton

  Peace, Ubuntu, Violence

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.207, Shambhala Publications

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• Every man becomes the image of the God he adores. He whose worship is directed to a dead thing becomes dead. He who loves corruption rots. He who loves a shadow becomes, himself, a shadow. He who loves things that must perish lives in dread of their perishing.

  Thomas Merton

  Men, Shadow, Worship

  Thomas Merton (2002). “No Man Is an Island”, p.263, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The real hope is not in something we think we can do, but in God, who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see.

  Thomas Merton

  God, Hope, Religious

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.434, Macmillan

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• God, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absent. If we do not know Him well, we do not realize that He may be more present to us when He is absent than when He is present.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, May, Sometimes

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.250, Shambhala Publications

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• To be a saint is to be yourself.

  Thomas Merton

  Being Yourself, Saint

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