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The simplicity that all this presupposes is not easy to attain. I find that my life constantly threatens to become complex and divisive. A life of prayer is basically a very simple life. This simplicity, however, is the result of asceticism and effort: it is not a spontaneous simplicity.

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
Results
Spontaneous
Prayer
Complexes
Effort
Complex
Simple
Simplicity
Divisive
Easy
Basically
Asceticism
Become
Constantly
Presupposes
Find
Result
Threatens
Life
However
Attain

More quotes by Thomas Merton

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There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness.
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There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.
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The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had chosen suffering in preference to the joys of union with God, the Lord turned suffering itself into a way by which man could come to the perfect knowledge of God.
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Saints are what they are not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others, but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everyone else.
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A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God.
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The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.
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The most awful tyranny is that of the proximate Utopia where the last sins are currently being eliminated and where, tomorrow, there will be no more sins because all the sinners will have been wiped out.
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Our real journey in life is interior.
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For the sinful self is not my real self, it is not the self YOU have wanted for me, only the self that I have wanted : And I no longer want this false self. But now, Father, I come to You in your own Son's self ... and it is He Who Presents me to You.
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Violence is essentially wordless. and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.
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A superficial freedom to wander aimlessly here or there, to taste this or that, to make a choice of distractions, is simply a sham. It claims to be a freedom of choice when it has evaded the basic task of discovering who it is that chooses.
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The closer we are to God, the closer we are to those who are close to him.
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May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.
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Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in the purity of our love for God, and this pure love is a delicate plant that grows best where there is plenty of time for it to mature
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And that is why the man who wants to see clearly, before he will believe, never starts on the journey.
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My spiritual goal is to one day walk into God and disappear.
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Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
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O God, my God, the night has values that the day never dreamed of.
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Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.
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Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.
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