Thomas Merton: Trending quotes (page 5)

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“I make monastic silence a protest against the lies of politicians, propagandists, and agitators, and when I speak it is to deny that my faith and my church can ever be aligned with these forces of injustice and destruction. But it is true, nevertheless, that the faith in which I believe is also invoked by many who believe in war, believe in racial injustices, believe in self-righteous and lying forms of tyranny. My life must, then, be a protest against these also, and perhaps against these most of all.”

Thomas Merton

Source: Choosing to Love the World: On Contemplation, p. 82

Life , War , Faith , Lying

“There is not a flower that opens, not a seed that falls into the ground, and not an ear of wheat that nods on the end of its stalk in the wind that does not preach and proclaim the greatness and the mercy of God to the whole world. There is not an act of kindness or generosity, not an act of sacrifice done, or a word of peace and gentleness spoken, not a child's prayer uttered, that does not sing hymns to God before his throne, and in the eyes of men, and before their faces.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

Men , God , World , Peace

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Thomas Merton

Thoughts in Solitude (1956)

Death , God , Fear , Hope

“Everybody makes fun of virtue, which by now has, as its primary meaning, an affectation of prudery practiced by hypocrites and the impotent.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

“The book of the Bible which most obviously resembles the Taoist classics is Ecclesiastes. But at the same time there is much in the teaching of the Gospels on simplicity, childlikeness, and humility, which responds to the deepest aspirations of the Chuang Tzu book and the Tao Teh Ching.”

Thomas Merton

"A Note To The Reader".
The Way of Chuang-Tzŭ (1965)

Books , Time

“Men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

Source: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), p. 30

Truth , Men

“Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that 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 the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

Source: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), p. 91

Hurt , Pain , Understanding , People

“The book of the Bible which most obviously resembles the Taoist classics is Ecclesiastes.”

Thomas Merton

But at the same time there is much in the teaching of the Gospels on simplicity, childlikeness, and humility, which responds to the deepest aspirations of the Chuang Tzu book and the Tao Teh Ching.
"A Note To The Reader".
The Way of Chuang-Tzŭ (1965)

Books

“This new language of prayer has to come out of something which transcends all our traditions, and comes out of the immediacy of love. We have to part now, aware of the love that unites us, the love that unites us in spite of real differences, real emotional friction… The things on the surface are nothing, what is deep is the Real. We are creatures of Love. Let us therefore join hands, as we did before, and I will try to say something that comes out of the depths of our hearts. I ask you to concentrate on the love that is in you, that is in us all. I have no idea what I am going to say. I am going to be silent a minute, and then I will say something…”

Thomas Merton

'O God, we are one with You. You have made us one with You. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, You dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our hearts. Help us to realize that there can be no understanding where there is mutual rejection. O God, in accepting one another wholeheartedly, fully, completely, we accept You, and we thank You, and we adore You, and we love You with our whole being, because our being is Your being, our spirit is rooted in Your spirit. Fill us then with love, and let us be bound together with love as we go our diverse ways, united in this one spirit which makes You present in the world, and which makes You witness to the ultimate reality that is love. Love has overcome. Love is victorious. Amen.'
Closing statements and prayer from an informal address delivered in Calcutta, India (October 1968), from The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1975); quoted in Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master : The Essential Writings (1992), p. 237.

Heart , Idea , Love , Making love

“In so far as men are prepared to prefer their own will to God’s will, they can be said to hate God: for of course they cannot hate Him in Himself. But they hate Him in the Commandments which they violate. But God is our life: God’s will is our food, our meat, our life’s bread.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

Source: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), p. 252

God , Hate , Food , Life

“In so far as men are prepared to prefer their own will to God's will, they can be said to hate God.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

Source: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), p. 252

God , Hate , Men

“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.”

Thomas Merton book The Seven Storey Mountain

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.

p. 147
The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

World , Love , Life , Making love