We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295) Thomas Merton More Quotes by Thomas Merton More Quotes From Thomas Merton Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness. Thomas Merton true-relationship contemplative illusion Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things which... are just the opposite of what we were made for? Thomas Merton waste opposites want For language to have meaning, there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. For the mercy of God is not heard in words unless it is heard, both before and after the words are spoken, in silence. Thomas Merton mercy-of-god hate silence Things that are good are good, and if one is responding to that goodness one is in contact with a truth from which one is getting something. The truth is doing us good. The truth of the sunshine, the truth of the rain, the truth of the fresh air, the truth of the wind in the trees, these are truths. And they are always accessible! Thomas Merton sunshine air rain No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. Thomas Merton spiritual writing wind Living is not thinking. Thought is formed and guided by objective reality outside us. Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way that we are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new. Thus life is always new. Thomas Merton wisdom reality thinking Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. Thomas Merton uplifting soul men God utters me like a word containing a partial thought of him. A word will never be able to comprehend the voice that utters it. But if I am true to the concept that God utters in me, if I am true to the thought of Him that I was meant to embody, I shall be full of his actuality and find him everywhere in myself, and find myself nowhere. Thomas Merton spirituality able voice In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of our own futility, and be content to be in Him and to do whatever He wills, according to our limitations, judging our acts not in the light of our own illusions, but in the light of His reality which is all around us in the things and people we live with. Thomas Merton light mirrors reality We cannot master everything, taste everything, understand everything, drain every experience to its last dregs. But if we have the courage to let almost everything else go, we will probably be able to retain the thing necessary for us-whatever it may be. If we are too eager to have everything, we will almost certainly miss even the one thing we need Thomas Merton missing may needs The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me. Thomas Merton contradiction mercy way Prayer and love are really learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and your heart turns to stone. Thomas Merton wisdom prayer love For me to be a saint means to be myself. Thomas Merton saint mean To desire Him to be merciful to us is to acknowledge Him as God. To seek His pity when we deserve no pity is to ask Him to be just with a justice so holy that it knows no evil and shows mercy to everyone who does not fly from Him in despair. Thomas Merton acknowledge-him wisdom evil What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer? Thomas Merton use prayer answers Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success, and they are in such a hurry to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them, they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity. Thomas Merton haste artist integrity There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves. Thomas Merton recovery instinct creative To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell. Thomas Merton hell events light We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us. But we make ourselves true inside by manifesting the truth as we see it. Thomas Merton being-true manifest knows Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity. Thomas Merton wisdom spiritual worry
