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To be ordinary is not a choice: It is the usual freedom of men without visions.

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
Choices
Freedom
Without
Men
Visions
Usual
Ordinary
Choice
Vision

More quotes by Thomas Merton

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A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless, than one that always verges on despair.
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Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.
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It seems to me that the darkness that has troubled you ... comes from one very serious source. Without wanting to be in conflict with the truth and with the will of God, we are actually going against God's will and His teaching.
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A man searching for enlightenment is like a man sitting on an Ass in search of an Ass
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In the end, it's the reality of personal realtionships that save everything.
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The peace produced by grace is a spiritual stability too deep for violence — it is unshakeable
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The God of peace is never glorified by human violence.
Thomas Merton
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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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In the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for 'finding himself.' If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence.
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It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes.
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If you want to have a spiritual life you must unify your life. A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all.
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The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the other.... The whole purpose of life is to live by love.
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Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake.
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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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It is the will of God that we live not only as rational beings, but as new men regenerated by the Holy Spirit in Christ. It is His will that we reach out for our inheritance, that we answer His call to be His sons. We are born men without our consent, but the consent to be sons of God has to be elicited by our own free will.
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Love is perfect in proportion to it's freedom.
Thomas Merton
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People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
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Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as if creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God.
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From the moment you put a piece of bread in your mouth you are part of the world. Who grew the wheat? Who made the bread? Where did it come from? You are in relationship with all who brought it to the table. We are least separate and most in common when we eat and drink.
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My life is ... a mystery which I do not attempt to really understand, as though 1 were led by the hand in a night where I see nothing, but can fully depend on the love and protection of Him who guides me.
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