7 Quotes by Thomas Merton about peace

  • Author Thomas Merton
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    Instead of hating the people you think are war-makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed - but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

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  • Author Thomas Merton
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    Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs gestated in the smoke of confabulation. There can be no peace on earth without the kind of inner change that brings man back to his "right mind." p. 31

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  • Author Thomas Merton
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    To allow oneself to be carried awayBy a multitude of conflicting concerns,To surrender to too many demands,...To commit oneself to too many projects,To want to help everyone with everythingIs to succumb to violence.

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  • Author Thomas Merton
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    Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.

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  • Author Thomas Merton
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    Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed . . . I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.

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