Thomas Merton quotes - page 2

But there is greater comfort in the substance of silence than in the answer to a question. (Thomas Merton)
Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism. View quote
Thomas Merton
A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live. View quote
Thomas Merton
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. View quote
Thomas Merton
Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity. View quote
Thomas Merton
A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly. View quote
Thomas Merton
You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope. View quote
Thomas Merton
Hope of attaining true freedom by purely political means has become an insane delusion. View quote
Thomas Merton
Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more. View quote
Thomas Merton
The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds. View quote
Thomas Merton
If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision. (Thomas Merton)
Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm. View quote
Thomas Merton
What we have to be is what we are. View quote
Thomas Merton
The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods. View quote
Thomas Merton
When you expect the world to end at any moment, you know there is no need to hurry. You take your time, you do your work well. View quote
Thomas Merton
The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear. View quote
Thomas Merton
I will no longer wound myself with the thoughts and questions that have surrounded me like thorns: that is a penance You do not ask of me. View quote
Thomas Merton
Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a person deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost. View quote
Thomas Merton
Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. View quote
Thomas Merton
We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real... and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295) View quote
Thomas Merton
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)
Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us. View quote
Thomas Merton
In our creation, God asked a question and in our truly living; God answers the question. View quote
Thomas Merton
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny.... To work out our identity in God. View quote
Thomas Merton
We do not want to be beginners [at prayer]. but let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything but beginners, all our life! View quote
Thomas Merton