“Pardon all runners,
All speechless, alien winds,
All mad waters.

Pardon their impulses,
Their wild attitudes,
Their young flights, their reticence.

When a message has no clothes on
How can it be spoken.”

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Pardon all runners, All speechless, alien winds, All mad waters. Pardon their impulses, Their wild attitudes, Their yo…" by Thomas Merton?
Thomas Merton photo
Thomas Merton 92
Priest and author 1915–1968

Related quotes

Robert G. Ingersoll photo
W. H. Auden photo
Jonathan Edwards photo

“Some that oppose this doctrine indeed say, that the apostle sometimes means that it is by faith, i. e. a hearty embracing the gospel in its first act only, or without any preceding holy life, that persons are admitted into a justified state; but, say they, it is by a persevering obedience that they are continued in a justified state, and it is by this that they are finally justified. But this is the same thing as to say, that a man on his first embracing the gospel is conditionally justified and pardoned. To pardon sin, is to free the sinner from the punishment of it, or from that eternal misery that is due to it; and therefore if a person is pardoned, or freed from this misery, on his first embracing the gospel, and yet not finally freed, but his actual freedom still depends on some condition yet to be performed, it is inconceivable how he can be pardoned otherwise than conditionally; that is, he is not properly actually pardoned, and freed from punishment, but only he has God’s promise that he shall be pardoned on future conditions. God promises him, that now, if he perseveres in obedience, he shall be finally pardoned, or actually freed from hell; which is to make just nothing at all of the apostle’s great doctrine of justification by faith alone. Such a conditional pardon is no pardon or justification at all, any more than all mankind have, whether they embrace the gospel or no; for they all have a promise of final justification on conditions of future sincere obedience, as much as he that embraces the gospel.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

Justification By Faith Alone (1738)

Robert Graves photo

“Then all you lovers have good heed
Vex not young Love in word or deed:
Love never leaves an unpaid debt,
He will not pardon nor forget.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Advice To Lovers".
Country Sentiment (1920)

“Only he who has the power to punish can pardon.”

Nahj al-Balagha

Augustus photo

“All is forgiven to kings and popes. History grants them immunity, even a full pardon, even when they admit their crimes and glory in them.”

Pierre Stephen Robert Payne (1911–1983) British lecturer, novelist, historian, poet and biographer

Lord Acton, Nietzsche, and Dostoyevsky, p. 180
The Corrupt Society - From Ancient Greece To Present-Day America (1975)

As-Saffah photo

“When forbearance is mischievous, to pardon is weakness.”

As-Saffah (722–754) First Abbasid caliph

History of the Caliphs, p. 263

Oscar Wilde photo

Related topics