Quotes from Thomas Merton

Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism.

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.

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!

Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.

The true contemplative is one who has discovered the art of finding leisure even in the midst of his work, by working with such a spirit of detachment and recollection that even his work is a prayer

Life is not accomplishing some special work but attaining to a degree of consciousness and inner freedom which is beyond all works and attainments.

"Love is, in fact, an intensification of life, a completeness, a fullness, a wholeness of life."

If we seek paradise outside ourselves, we cannot have paradise in our hearts.

Because of their enmity you will be left alone. They will cast you out and forsake you.

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our work.

There is a subtle but inescapable connection between the "sacred" attitude and the acceptance of one's in most self.