Thomas Merton Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Thomas Merton quotes, Thomas Merton sayings, and Thomas Merton proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

He who is controlled by objects loses possession of his inner self: if he no longer values himself, how can he value others? If he no longer values others, he is abandoned. He has nothing left! Thomas Merton
A daydream is an evasion. Thomas Merton
Love is the epiphany of God in our poverty. Thomas Merton
The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. Thomas Merton
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. Thomas Merton
Contemplation means rest, suspension of activity, withdrawal into the mysterious interior solitude in which the soul is absorbed in the immense and fruitful silence of God and learns something of the secret of His perfections less by seeing than by fruitive love. Thomas Merton
True contemplation is not a psychological trick but a theological grace. It can come to us only as a gift, and not as a result of our own clever use of spiritual techniques. Thomas Merton
Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, and fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant source. Thomas Merton
In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate. Thomas Merton
Not all of us are called to be hermits, but all of us need enough silence and solitude in our lives to enable the deeper voice of our own self to be heard at least occasionally. Thomas Merton
To love our nothingness we must love everything in us that the proud man loves when he loves himself. But we must love it all for exactly the opposite reason. Thomas Merton
Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself. Thomas Merton
The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole human race with an error that makes all our acts more or less lies against God. 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. Thomas Merton
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. Thomas Merton
O love-why can't you leave me alone? Which is a rhetorical question meaning: for heaven's sake, don't. Thomas Merton
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
The goal of fasting is inner unity. Thomas Merton
If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts. Thomas Merton
Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things. Thomas Merton
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. Thomas Merton
The meaning of life is found in openness to being and "being present" in full awareness. Thomas Merton
The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most. Thomas Merton
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. Thomas Merton
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
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
The more selfish you are, the more involved life becomes. Thomas Merton
Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost. Thomas Merton
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. Thomas Merton
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Thomas Merton

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