Attachment to spiritual things is.. just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else. – Thomas Merton
The monk in hiding himself from the world becomes not less than himself, not less of a person, but more of a person, more truly and perfectly himself: for his personality and individuality are perfected in their true order, the spiritual, interior order. – Thomas Merton
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. – Thomas Merton
Every moment and every event of every mans life on earth plants something in his soul. – Thomas Merton
The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of Gods mercy to me. – Thomas Merton
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. – Thomas Merton
We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us. – Thomas Merton
Perhaps I am stronger than I think. – Thomas Merton
Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience. – Thomas Merton
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire. – Thomas Merton
The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom. – Thomas Merton
We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have – for their usefulness. – Thomas Merton
If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell. – Thomas Merton
When ambition ends, happiness begins. – Thomas Merton
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. – Thomas Merton
Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ. – Thomas Merton
Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward. – Thomas Merton
The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error. – Thomas Merton
We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God. – Thomas Merton
Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it. – Thomas Merton
