Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 8

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.

  Thomas Merton

  People, Body, Fancy

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.24, 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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• 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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• 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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• 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 closer we are to God, the closer we are to those who are close to him.

  Thomas Merton

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.176, 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 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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• 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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• Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.

  Thomas Merton

  Courage, Listening, Quiet

  Thomas Merton (1998). “Contemplation in a World of Action: Second Edition, Restored and Corrected”, p.191, University of Notre Dame Pess

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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 some men peace merely means the liberty to exploit other people without fear of retaliation or interference. To others peace means the freedom to rob others without interruption. To still others it means the leisure to devour the goods of the earth without being compelled to interrupt their pleasures to feed those whom their greed is starving. And to practically everybody peace simply means the absence of any physical violence that might cast a shadow over lives devoted to the satisfaction of their animal appetites for comfort and pleasure.

  Thomas Merton

  Mean, Men, Animal

  Thomas Merton (2007). “New Seeds of Contemplation”, p.122, New Directions Publishing

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• Jesus lived and died in vain if He did not teach us to regulate the whole of life by the eternal law of love. Gandhi, quoted in Merton, p. 38

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Wisdom, Jesus

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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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• What we have to be is what we are.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom

  Thomas Merton (1975). “The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton”, p.308, New Directions Publishing

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• The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself.

  Thomas Merton

  Attitude, Real, Fundamentals

  Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.124, Sounds True

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• Living is not thinking. Thought is formed and guided by objective reality outside us. Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way that we are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new. Thus life is always new.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Reality, Thinking

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.32, Macmillan

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