854 Quotes by Thomas Merton

You are certainly one of the joys of life for all who have ever come within a mile of you.

The sacred attitude is, then, one of deep and fundamental respect for the real in whatever new form it may present itself.

Sincerity must be bought at a price: the humility to recognize our innumerable errors, and fidelity in tirelessly setting them right.

Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as if creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God.

Be human in this most inhuman of ages; guard the image of man for it is the image of God.

Contemplation is the loving sense of this life, this presence and this eternity.

My God, I pray better to you by breathing. I pray better to you by walking than by talking.

No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.

The modern child may early in his or her existence have natural inclinations toward spirituality. The child may have imagination, originality, a simple and individual response to reality, and even a tendency to moments of thoughtful silence and absorption. All these tendencies, however, are soon destroyed by the dominant culture. The child becomes a yelling, brash, false little monster, brandishing a toy gun or dressed up like some character he has seen on television.