Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O.was an American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth31 January 1915
CityPrades, France
CountryUnited States of America
Thomas Merton quotes about
order complacency vices
The pleasure of a good act is something to be remembered - not in order to feed our complacency but in order to remind us that virtuous actions are not only possible and valuable, but that they can become easier and more delightful and more fruitful than the acts of vice which oppose and frustrate them.
eye thinking giving
We must suffer. Our five sense are dulled by inordinate pleasure. Penance makes them keen, gives them back their natural vitality, and more. Penance clears the eye of conscience and of reason. It helps think clearly, judge sanely. It strengthens the action of our will.
logic language mathematics
There is a logic of language and a logic of mathematics.
way logic language
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.
answers asking-yourself-questions needs
Stop asking yourself questions that have no meaning. Or if they have, you'll find out when you need to -- find out both the questions and the answers.
prayer thinking self
In meditative prayer, one thinks and speaks not only with the mind and lips, but in a certain sense with one's whole being... All good meditative prayer is a conversation of our entire self to God.
way strange unexpected
I can depend less and less on my own power and sense of direction...It is so strange to advance backwards and get where you are going in a totally unexpected way
enmity left-alone casts
Because of their enmity you will be left alone. They will cast you out and forsake you.
religious book people
Curiously, the most serious religious people, or the most concerned scholars, those who constantly read the Bible as a matter of professional or pious duty, can often manage to evade a radically involved dialogue with the book they are questioning.
imagination kind obscure
We refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind of humiliation
today desert problem
The problem today is that there are no deserts, only dude ranches.
god-love unhappiness
The only unhappiness is not to love God.
opposites want waste
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?
awareness insight
Zen insight is not our awareness, but Being's awareness of itself in us.