Quotes from Thomas Merton

One opens the inner doors of one's heart to the infinite silences of the Spirit, out of whose abysses love wells up without fail and gives itself to all.

Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

If we are to love sincerely, and with simplicity, we must first of all overcome the fear of not being loved.

Our happiness consists in sharing the happiness of God, the perfection of His unlimited freedom, the perfection of His love.

...love triumphs, at least in this life, not by eliminating evil once for all, but by resisting and overcoming it anew every day.

But precisely this illusion that everything is "clear" is what is blinding us all. It is a serious temptation, and it is a subtle form of pride and worldly love of power and revenge.

For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to another. If my heart does not first belong to me, how can I give it to another?

To Serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor.

Love is a special way of being alive.

O love-why can't you leave me alone? Which is a rhetorical question meaning: for heaven's sake, don't.

To become attached to the experience of peace is to threaten the true and essential and vital union of our soul with God above sense and experience in the darkness of a pure and perfect love.

Love is free; it does not depend on the desirability of its object, but loves for love's sake.

The only unhappiness is not to love God.

Love winter when the plant says nothing.

Love is not a mere emotion or sentiment. It is the lucid and ardent responses of the whole person to a value that is revealed to him as perfect.

The truth never becomes clear as long as we assume that each one of us, individually, is the center of the universe.

The artist should preach nothing-not even his own autonomy. His art should speak its own truth, and in so doing it will be in harmony with every other kind of truth- moral, metaphysical, mystical.

The center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth.

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.

In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.

Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.

Love is not a matter of getting what you want. Quite the contrary. The insistence on always having what you want, on always being satisfied, on always being fulfilled, makes love impossible.

The only right way: to love and serve the man of the modern world, but not simply to succumb, with him, to all his illusions about the world.

We love the things we pretend to laugh at.