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
humility journey men
It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else's life? His sanctity will never be yours; you must have the humility to work out your own salvation in a darkness where you are absolutely alone...
pride self glory
For pride, which is the inordinate attribution of goods and values and glories to one's own contingent self, cannot exist where there is no contingent self to which anything can be attributed.
night hands action
My life is ... a mystery which I do not attempt to really understand, as though 1 were led by the hand in a night where I see nothing, but can fully depend on the love and protection of Him who guides me.
change money men
a man can radically change his life and attain to a deeper meaning, a more perfect integration, a more complete fulfillment, a more total liberty of spirit than are possible in the routines of a purely active existence centered on money-making.
errors tree giants
Grains of error planted innocently in a well-kept greenhouse can become giant poisonous trees.
effort important able
The things I thought were so important -- because of the effort I put into them -- have turned out to be of small value. And the things I never thought about, the things I was never able to either to measure or to expect, were the things that mattered.
gratitude writing simple
My own personal task is not simply that of poet and writer (still less commentator, pseudo-prophet); it is basically to praise God out of an inner center of silence, gratitude, and 'awareness.' This can be realized in a life that apparently accomplishes nothing. Without centering on accomplishment or nonaccomplishment, my task is simply the breathing of this gratitude from day to day, in simplicity, and for the rest turning my hand to whatever comes, work being part of praise, whether splitting logs or writing poems, or best of all simple notes.
looks study infinite
Either you look at the universe as a very poor creation out of which no one can make anything or you look at your own life and your own part in the universe as infinitely rich, full of inexhaustible interest, opening out into infinite further possibilities for study and contemplation and interest and praise. Beyond all and in all is God.
prayer simple effort
The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and divisive. A life of prayer is basically a very simple life. This simplicity, however, is the result of asceticism and effort: it is not a spontaneous simplicity.
spiritual decay degradation
The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay.
sense-of-humor gentle theologian
A gentle sense of humor will be alert to detect anything that savors of a pious 'act' on the part of the penitent.
faith inspiration america
The biggest disease in North America is busyness.
practice needs fundamentals
For our duties and our needs, in all the fundamental things for which we were created, come down in practice to the same thing.
love-is poverty epiphany
Love is the epiphany of God in our poverty.