Thomas Merton Quotes

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.

‎"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.

The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.

People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.

Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.

It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.

The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.

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

Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn't already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.

May God prevent us from becoming "right-thinking men"-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.

In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.

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.

Ash Wednesday is full of joy...The source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust.

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

You are made in the image of what you desire.

Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace.

We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.

A faith that is afraid of other people is no faith at all.

Before we can realize who we really are, we must become conscious of the fact that the person we think we are, here and now, is at best an impostor and a stranger.

I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.

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

Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.

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

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

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

When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.

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

Perhaps I am stronger than I think.

There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the donkey understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem. And it is the same today.

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.

For perfect hope is achieved on the brink of despair, when instead of falling over the edge, we find ourselves walking on air.

How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?

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.

We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.

Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.

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.

We are not converted only once in our lives but many times and this endless series of conversions and inner revolutions leads to our transformation.

Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith.

A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.

We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.

We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great.

We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God

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

Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.