854 Quotes by Thomas Merton

We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of others and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.

Because of their enmity you will be left alone. They will cast you out and forsake you.

The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which he presents to the world, and to bring out his inner spiritual freedom, his inmost truth, which is what we call the likeness of Christ in his soul.

... but any fool knows that you don't need money to get enjoyment out of life.

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

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.

Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action.

Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.

Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness.