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If there is no silence beyond and within the many words of doctrine, there is no religion, only a religious ideology. For religion goes beyond words and actions, and attains to the ultimate Truth only in silence and Love.

Thomas Merton

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Thomas Merton
Age: 53 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 15
Died: 1968
Died: December 10
Autobiographer
Catholic Priest
Essayist
Journalist
Peace Activist
Poet
Theologian
Trappist Cistercian Monk
Writer
Thomas Feverel Merton
Father Louis
Words
Actions
Action
Ultimate
Truth
Beyond
Many
Silence
Love
Goes
Within
Attains
Religious
Ideology
Religion
Doctrine

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The problem today is that there are no deserts, only dude ranches.
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Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it.
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We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.
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O love-why can't you leave me alone? Which is a rhetorical question meaning: for heaven's sake, don't.
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We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to like one another.
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Love is not a mere emotion or sentiment. It is the lucid and ardent responses of the whole person to a value that is revealed to him as perfect.
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One of the strange laws of the contemplative life is that in it you do not sit down and solve problems: you bear with them until they somehow solve themselves. Or until life solves them for you.
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The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay.
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A gentle sense of humor will be alert to detect anything that savors of a pious 'act' on the part of the penitent.
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Do not be one of those who, rather than risk failure, never attempts anything.
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Happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found.
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We love the things we pretend to laugh at.
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This is the crucifixion of Christ: in which He dies again and again in the individuals who were made to share the joy and freedom of His grace, and who deny Him.
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Love is the door to eternity.
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We must suffer. Our five sense are dulled by inordinate pleasure. Penance makes them keen, gives them back their natural vitality, and more. Penance clears the eye of conscience and of reason. It helps think clearly, judge sanely. It strengthens the action of our will.
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We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves. But a selfish love of ourselves makes us incapable of loving others.
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May God prevent us from becoming right-thinking men-that is to say men who agree perfectly with their own police.
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Faith is the door to the full inner life of the Church, a life which includes not only access to an authoritative teaching but above all to a deep personal experience which is at once unique and yet shared by the whole Body of Christ, in the Spirit of Christ.
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To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor.
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The goal of fasting is inner unity.
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