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Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice.

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
Demands
Labor
Demand
Sacrifice
Peace
Fidelity
Difficult
Heroism
Heroic
Purity

More quotes by Thomas Merton

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The center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth.
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Gratitude takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder.
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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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Why do we have to spend our lives striving to be something that we would never want to be, if we only knew what we wanted? Why do we waste our time doing things which... are just the opposite of what we were made for?
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The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole human race with an error that makes all our acts more or less lies against God.
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That is God's call to us - simply to be people who are content to live close to him and to renew the kind of life in which the closeness is felt and experienced.
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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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The real hope is not in something we think we can do, but in God, who is making something good out of it in some way we cannot see.
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Our minds are like crows. They pick up everything that glitters, no matter how uncomfortable our nests get with all that metal in them.
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While some men see ordinary happenings, others see divine light and guidance.
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There is not true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude.
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But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
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When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of it, I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively no distraction. My whole life becomes a prayer. My whole silence is full of prayer. The world of silence in which I am immersed contributes to my prayer.
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In the end, it's the reality of personal realtionships that save everything.
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The meaning of life is found in openness to being and being present in full awareness.
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True happiness is not found in any other reward than that of being united with God. If I seek some other reward besides God Himself, I may get my reward but I cannot be happy.
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The whole aim of Zen is not to make foolproof statements about experience, but to come to direct grips with reality without the mediation of logical verbalizing.
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For power can guarantee the interests of some men but it can never foster the good of man. Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. Any claim to build the security of all on force is a manifest imposture.
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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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Technology is not in itself opposed to spirituality and to religion. But it presents a great temptation.
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