Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say. Thomas Merton More Quotes by Thomas Merton More Quotes From Thomas Merton The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them. Thomas Merton atheistrealwisdom First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you? Thomas Merton destinyresponsibilitymen Each particular being, in its individuality, its concrete nature and entity, with all its own characteristics and its private qualities and its own inviolable identity, gives glory to God by being precisely what He wants it to be here and now, in the circumstances ordained for it by His Love and His infinite Art. Thomas Merton individualitygivingart My spiritual goal is to one day walk into God and disappear. Thomas Merton one-daygoalspiritual Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Thomas Merton familyinspirationallove If there is no silence beyond and within the many words of doctrine, there is no religion, only a religious ideology. For religion goes beyond words and actions, and attains to the ultimate Truth only in silence and Love. Thomas Merton and-lovesilencereligious He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination. Thomas Merton trust-in-godpossessionimagination Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand. Thomas Merton unspeakableparadisesecret No one is so wrong as the man who knows all the answers. Thomas Merton he-mananswersmen Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism. Thomas Merton solitudewisdomway Very well, then: why are you attached to any one book, or to the words and ways of one saint when he himself tells you to let them go and walk in simplicity? To hang on to him as if to make a method of him is to contradict him and to go in the opposite direction to the one in which he would have you travel. Thomas Merton simplicityoppositesbook If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. Thomas Merton carpe-diemwisdomheart As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish. There are two things which men can do about the pain of disunion with other men. They can love or they can hate. Thomas Merton painhatelove-is When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of it, I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively no distraction. My whole life becomes a prayer. My whole silence is full of prayer. The world of silence in which I am immersed contributes to my prayer. Thomas Merton silenceprayerworld When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you. Thomas Merton grace One has to be alone, under the sky, Before everything falls into place and one finds his or her own place in the midst of it all. We have to have the humility to realize ourselves as part of nature. Thomas Merton humilityskyfall My God, I pray better to you by breathing and walking than by talking, just as in choir I sing best when I am thinking about something else, or better still, praying. Thomas Merton breathingprayingtalking Some of us need to discover that we will not begin to live more fully until we have the courage to do and see and taste and experience much less than usual... And for a man who has let himself be drawn completely out of himself by his activity, nothing is more difficult than to sit still and rest, doing nothing at all. The very act of resting is the hardest and most courageous act he can perform. Thomas Merton spiritualinspirationalmen Creation was given to people as a clean window through which the light of God could shine into people's souls. Sun and moon, night and day, rain, sea, the crops, the flowering tree, all these things were transparent. They spoke to people not of themselves but only of Him who made them. Nature was symbolic. But the progressive degradation of humans led them further and further from this truth. Nature became opaque. Thomas Merton naturemoonrain In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your peace of heart. Thomas Merton humilityheartthinking
