Thomas Merton Quotes - Page 9

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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

  25 Copy quote

• 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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• 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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• Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Ambition, Way

  Thomas Merton, Lawrence Cunningham (1996). “A search for solitude: pursuing the monk's true life”, Harper San Francisco

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• On Pride: This sickness is most dangerous when it succeeds in looking like humility. When a proud man thinks he is humble his case is hopeless.

  Thomas Merton

  Spiritual, Humble, Humility

  Thomas Merton (1962). “Seeds of contemplation”

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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 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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• 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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• Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed . . . I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.

  Thomas Merton

  Peace, War, Fall

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• To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything.

  Thomas Merton

  Thanksgiving, Gratitude, Grateful

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

  42 Copy quote

• Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone.

  Thomas Merton

  Love, Wisdom, Prayer

  "New Seeds of Contemplation".

  10 Copy quote

• 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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• There are days when I am convinced that Heaven starts already, now, in this ordinary life just as it is, in all its incompleteness, yet, this is where Heaven starts.. see within yourself, if you can find it. I walked through the field in front of the house, lots of swallows flying, everywhere! Some very near me..it was magical. "We are already one, yet we know it not.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Heaven, House

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• We do not exist for ourselves.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Happiness, Success

  Thomas Merton (2005). “No Man is an Island”, p.21, Shambhala Publications

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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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• Today will never come again.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Today

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• The gate of heaven is everywhere.

  Thomas Merton

  Heaven, Gates Of Heaven, Gates

  Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.68, Sounds True

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• The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis, but first of all by living. For until we have begun to live our prudence has no material to work on. And until we have begun to fail we have no way of working out our success.

  Thomas Merton

  Life, Work Out, Analysis

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• It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who He is, and who we are.

  Thomas Merton

  Keys, Understanding, Enemy

  Thomas Merton (2011). “The Hidden Ground of Love: Letters”, p.216, Macmillan

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• What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.

  Thomas Merton

  Inspiring, Life Changing, Moon

  Thomas Merton (1970). “The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

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• I will not fear, for you are ever with me and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

  Thomas Merton

  Angel, Faces, Peril

  Thomas Merton (2015). “Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation”, p.85, Sounds True

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• Merely to resist evil with evil by hating those who hate us and seeking to destroy them, is actually no resistance at all. It is active and purposeful collaboration in evil that brings the Christian into direct and intimate contact with the same source of evil and hatred which inspires the acts of his enemy. It leads in practice to a denial of Christ and to the service of hatred rather than love.

  Thomas Merton

  Christian, Wisdom, Hate

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• We too often forget that faith is a matter of questioning and struggle before it becomes one of certitude and peace. You have to doubt and reject everything else in order to believe firmly in Christ, and after you have begun to believe, your faith itself must be tested and purified. Christianity is not merely a set of forgone conclusions. Faith tends to be defeated by the burning presence of God in mystery, and seeks refuge from him, flying to comfortable social forms and safe convictions in which purification is no longer an inner battle but a matter of outward gesture.

  Thomas Merton

  Faith, Believe, Struggle

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• The danger of education, I have found, is that it so easily confuses means with ends. Worse than that, it quite easily forgets both and devotes itself merely to the mass production of uneducated gradtuates - people literaly unfit for anything except to take part in an elaborate and completely artificial charade which they and their contemporaries have conspired to call "life".

  Thomas Merton

  Mean, People, Atheism

  Thomas Merton (1979). “Love and Living”, p.14, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.

  Thomas Merton

  Fire, Feet, World

  Thomas Merton (2002). “The Sign of Jonas”, p.228, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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