Quote

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness.

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
Things
Dimmed
Meek
Wholeness
Hidden
Visible
Invisible
Inspirational
Light
Fecundity

More quotes by Thomas Merton

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October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful.
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We thank Him less by words than by the serene happiness of silent acceptance. It is our emptiness in the presence of His reality, our silence in the presence of His infinitely rich silence, our joy in the bosom of the serene darkness in which His light holds us absorbed, it is all this that praises Him.
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You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.
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The man who sweats under his mask, whose role makes him itch with discomfort, who hates the division in himself, is already beginning to be free.
Thomas Merton
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People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell.
Thomas Merton
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To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything.
Thomas Merton
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Love is its own reward.
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Jesus lived and died in vain if He did not teach us to regulate the whole of life by the eternal law of love. Gandhi, quoted in Merton, p. 38
Thomas Merton
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Humble people can do great things with uncommon perfection because they are no longer concerned about their own interests and their own reputation, and therefore they no longer need to waste their efforts in defending them.
Thomas Merton
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The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.
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For although God is right with us and in us and out of us and all through us, we have to go on journeys to find him.
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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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As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I consider myself a saint? How can I consider myself a contemplative? For the self I bother about does not really exist, never will, never did except in my own imagination.
Thomas Merton
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Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast.
Thomas Merton
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The camera does not know what it takes it captures materials with which you reconstruct, not so much what you saw as what you thought you saw. Hence the best photography is aware, mindful, of illusion and uses illusion, permitting and encouraging it - especially unconscious and powerful illusions that are not usually admitted on the scene.
Thomas Merton
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I am earth, earth My heart's love Bursts with hay and flowers. I am a lake of blue air In which my own appointed place Field and valley Stand reflected
Thomas Merton
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Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am.
Thomas Merton
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The only unhappiness is not to love God.
Thomas Merton
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Christ is born to us today, in order that he may appear to the whole world through us.
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I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.
Thomas Merton