Thomas Merton Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old Thomas Merton quotes, Thomas Merton sayings, and Thomas Merton proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.'

Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. Thomas Merton
The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods. Thomas Merton
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. Thomas Merton
Perhaps I am stronger than I think. Thomas Merton
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton
The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another. Thomas Merton
It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. Thomas Merton
We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are. Thomas Merton
he beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton
Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity. Thomas Merton
We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. Thomas Merton
We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. Thomas Merton
If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts. Thomas Merton
We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. Thomas Merton
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone-we find it with another. Thomas Merton
We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. Thomas Merton
Perhaps I am stronger than I think. Thomas Merton
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 Thomas Merton
If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts. Thomas Merton
The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Thomas Merton
Love is our true destiny. We do not find meaning of life by ourselves alone we find it with another. Thomas Merton
October is a fine and dangerous season in America . . . a wonderful time to begin anything at all. Thomas Merton
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Thomas Merton
To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything. Thomas Merton
Contemplation is the highest expression of man's intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is a spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness and for being Thomas Merton
If you have never had any distractions you don't know how to pray. Thomas Merton
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony. Thomas Merton
Tradition, which is always old, is at the same time ever new because it is always reviving born again in each new generation, to be lived and applied in a new and particular way. Thomas Merton
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives. Thomas Merton