854 Quotes by Thomas Merton

We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to “like” one another.

Our whole life is a meditation of our last decision – the only decision that matters.

The arguments of religious men are so often insincere, and their insincerity is proportionate to their anger. Why do we get angry about what we believe? Because we do not really believe it. Or else what we pretend to be defending as the “truth” is really our own self-esteem. A man of sincerity is less interested in defending the truth than in stating it clearly, for he thinks that if the truth be clearly seen it can very well take care of itself.

For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God’s will, to be what God wants us to be.

This time is given to me by God that I may live in it. It is not given to make something out of it, but given me to be stored away in eternity as my own.

I seek to speak to you, in some way, as your own self. Who can tell what this may mean? I myself do not know, but if you listen, things will be said that are perhaps not written in this book. And this will be due not to me but to the One who lives and speaks in both.

A man searching for enlightenment is like a man sitting on an Ass in search of an Ass.

Providence, that is the love of God, is very wise in turning away from the self-will of men, and in having nothing to do with them, and leaving them to their own devices, as long as they are intent on governing themselves, to show them to what depths of futility and sorrow their own helplessness is capable of dragging them. And.

True simplicity implies love and trust – it does not expect to be derided and rejected, any more than it expects to be admired and praised.