Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves.
THOMAS MERTONWhat can we gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?
More Thomas Merton Quotes
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For although God is right with us and in us and out of us and all through us, we have to go on journeys to find him.
THOMAS MERTON -
Weaknesses and deficiencies play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us. We are not all weak in the same spots, and so we supplement and complete one another, each one making up in himself for the lack in another.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 -
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?
THOMAS MERTON -
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.
THOMAS MERTON -
The spiritual life is first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied, it is to be lived.
THOMAS MERTON -
Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false Self. We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.
THOMAS MERTON -
You are made in the image of what you desire.
THOMAS MERTON -
Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.
THOMAS MERTON -
Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.
THOMAS MERTON -
May God prevent us from becoming “right-thinking men”-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.
THOMAS MERTON -
Others can give you a name or a number, but they can never tell you who you really are. That is something you yourself can only discover from within.
THOMAS MERTON -
Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am.
THOMAS MERTON -
Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.
THOMAS MERTON -
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
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 -
Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.
THOMAS MERTON -
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.
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.
THOMAS MERTON