Perhaps I am stronger than I think.
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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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 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 -
Actions are the doors and windows of being. Unless we act, we have no way of knowing what we are.
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 -
You are made in the image of what you desire.
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 -
Ours is a time of anxiety because we have willed it to be so. Our anxiety is not imposed on us by force from outside. We impose it on our world and upon one another from within ourselves.
THOMAS MERTON -
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 -
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.
THOMAS MERTON -
No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers.
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 -
Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves.
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 -
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 -
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
THOMAS MERTON