Quotes from Thomas Merton

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

The only influence that can really upset the injustice and iniquity of men is the power that breathes in the Christian tradition, renewing our participation in the Life that is the Light of men.

The man who lives in division is living in death. He cannot find himself because he is lost; he has ceased to be a reality. The person he believes himself to be is a bad dream.

Every other man is a piece of myself, for I am a part and a member of mankind.

Man was made for the highest activity, which is, in fact, his rest.

Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself.

The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.

One has to be alone, under the sky, Before everything falls into place and one finds his or her own place in the midst of it all. We have to have the humility to realize ourselves as part of nature.

In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.

When I pray for peace, I pray not only that the enemies of my own country may cease to want war, but above all that my country will cease to do the things that make war inevitable.

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

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 God of peace is never glorified by human violence.

In humility is the greatest freedom. As long as you have to defend the imaginary self that you think is important, you lose your peace of heart.

I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude-to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to be lost in the secret of His Face.

Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace.

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.

When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.

Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.

The great thing, and the only thing, is to adore and praise GOD.

God has brought me to Kentucky...the precise place he has chosen for my sanctification.

We become contemplatives when God discovers Himself in us.

My God, I pray better to you by breathing and walking than by talking, just as in choir I sing best when I am thinking about something else, or better still, praying.

Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God.