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Life reveals itself to us only in so far as well live it.

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
Reveals
Live
Wells
Well
Life

More quotes by Thomas Merton

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We refuse love, and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind of humiliation
Thomas Merton
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Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. They want quick success, and they are in such a hurry to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them, they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.
Thomas Merton
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In an age where there is much talk about being yourself, I reserve to myself the right to forget about being myself, since in any case there is very little chance of my being anybody else.
Thomas Merton
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Today the artist has inherited the combined functions of hermit, pilgrim, prophet, priest, shaman, sorcerer, soothsayer, alchemist.
Thomas Merton
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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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Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness.
Thomas Merton
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The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds
Thomas Merton
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Grains of error planted innocently in a well-kept greenhouse can become giant poisonous trees.
Thomas Merton
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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.
Thomas Merton
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It is both dangerous and easy to hate man as he is because he is not what he ought to be. If we do not first respect what he is we will never suffer him to become what he ought to be: in our impatience we do away with him altogether.
Thomas Merton
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The greatest temptations are not those that solicit our consent to obvious sin, but those that offer us great evils masking as the greatest goods.
Thomas Merton
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And of course most non-Catholics imagine that the Church is immensely rich, and that all Catholic institutions make money hand over fist, and that all the money is stored away somewhere to buy gold and silver dishes for the Pope and cigars for the College of Cardinals.
Thomas Merton
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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.
Thomas Merton
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Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.
Thomas Merton
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The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty. Ghandi, quoted in Merton, p. 68
Thomas Merton
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The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.
Thomas Merton
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Violence is essentially wordless. and it can begin only where thought and rational communication have broken down.
Thomas Merton
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A daydream is an evasion.
Thomas Merton
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To love our nothingness we must love everything in us that the proud man loves when he loves himself. But we must love it all for exactly the opposite reason.
Thomas Merton
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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.
Thomas Merton