Thomas Merton quotes - page 6

Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure you were created for Joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live. (Thomas Merton)
The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacythe strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men. A weird life it is to be living always in somebody elses imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could become real. View quote
Thomas Merton
We do not exist for ourselves. View quote
Thomas Merton
I believe we are going to have to prepare ourselves for the difficult and patient task of outgrowing rigid and intransigent nationalism, and work slowly towards a world federation of peaceful nations. How will this be possible Don't ask me. I don't know. But unless we develop a moral, spiritual, and political wisdom that is proportionate to our technological skill, our skill may end us. View quote
Thomas Merton
We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of men and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us. View quote
Thomas Merton
Technology is not in itself opposed to spirituality and to religion. But it presents a great temptation. View quote
Thomas Merton
Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all others. View quote
Thomas Merton
I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening, and get some sense, for a moment, that we are full of paradise without knowing it. View quote
Thomas Merton
It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God. View quote
Thomas Merton
The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a person, more truly and perfectly himself for his personality and individuality are perfected in their true order, the spiritual, interior order. View quote
Thomas Merton
I am willing to admit that some people might live there for years, or even a lifetime, so protected that they never sense the sweet stench of corruption that is all around them -- the keen, thin scent of decay that pervades everything and accuses with a terrible accusation the superficial youthfulness, the abounding undergraduate noise, that fills those ancient buildings. (Thomas Merton)
Violence is essentially wordless, and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down. View quote
Thomas Merton
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. View quote
Thomas Merton
We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything in people and in things and in nature and in events ... The only thing is we don't see it. ... I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere. View quote
Thomas Merton
... the degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay. View quote
Thomas Merton
I am able to approach the Buddhas barefoot and undisturbed, my feet in wet grass, wet sand. Then the silence of the extraordinary faces. The great smiles. Huge and yet subtle. Filled with every possibility, questioning nothing, knowing everything, rejecting nothing, the peace not of emotional resignation but of Madhyamika, of sunyata, that has seen through every question without trying to discredit anyone or anything - without refutation - without establishing some other argument. For the doctrinaire, the mind that needs well-established positions, such peace, such silence, can be frightening. View quote
Thomas Merton
And Catholics, thousands of Catholics everywhere, have the consummate audacity to weep and complain because God does not hear their prayers for peace, when they have neglected not only His will, but the ordinary dictates of natural reason and prudence, and let their children grow up according to the standards of a civilization of hyenas. View quote
Thomas Merton
"If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh and the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life.” That is to say, all men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure and reputation and power, cut themselves off from that charity which is the principle of all spiritual vitality and happiness because it alone saves us from the barren wilderness of our own abominable selfishness. View quote
Thomas Merton
I simply like Chuang Tzu because he is what he is and I feel no need to justify this liking to myself or to anyone else. He is far too great to need any apologies from me. ... His philosophical temper is, I believe, profoundly original and sane. It can of course be misunderstood. But it is basically simple and direct. It seeks, as does all the greatest philosoph­ical thought, to go immediately to the heart of things. Chuang Tzu is not concerned with words and formulas about reality, but with the direct existential grasp of reality in itself. Such a grasp is necessarily obscure and does not lend itself to abstract analysis. It can be presented in a parable, a fable, or a funny story about a conversation between two philosophers. View quote
Thomas Merton