Thomas Merton quotes

Thomas Merton was an American Trappist monk, writer, poet, and social activist. His works explored spirituality, interfaith dialogue, and social justice issues. He continues to inspire readers seeking meaning and peace in the modern world. Here are 144 of his quotes:

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 biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. View quote
Thomas Merton
The least work of learning is done in the classroom. View quote
Thomas Merton
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. View quote
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. View quote
Thomas Merton
Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. View quote
Thomas Merton
Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward. View quote
Thomas Merton
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another. View quote
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. View quote
Thomas Merton
To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that Love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name. View quote
Thomas Merton
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. (Thomas Merton)
Perhaps I am stronger than I think. View quote
Thomas Merton
When ambition ends, happiness begins. View quote
Thomas Merton
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times. View quote
Thomas Merton
By my monastic life and vows I am saying No to all the concentration camps, the aerial bombardments, the staged political trials, the judicial murders, the racial injustices, the economic tyrannies, and the whole socio-economic apparatus which seems geared for nothing but global destruction in spite of all its fair words in favor of peace. View quote
Thomas Merton
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying God. It "consents,” so to speak, to God's creative love. It is expressing an idea which is in God and which is not distinct from the essence of God, and therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree. View quote
Thomas Merton
The logic of the poet - that is, the logic of language or the experience itself - develops the way a living organism grows: it spreads out towards what it loves, and is heliotropic, like a plant. View quote
Thomas Merton
It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes. View quote
Thomas Merton
.... it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning. View quote
Thomas Merton
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... View quote
Thomas Merton
There is a logic of language and a logic of mathematics. (Thomas Merton)
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 most. View quote
Thomas Merton
If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit. View quote
Thomas Merton
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him. View quote
Thomas Merton
Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity. View quote
Thomas Merton