Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, O.C.S.O.was an American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth31 January 1915
CityPrades, France
CountryUnited States of America
way ordinary routine
The simplest and most effective way to sanctity is to disappear into the background of ordinary every day routine.
feet fire world
The whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music under my feet.
reality mind shadow
... Nothing resembles reality less than the photograph. Nothing resembles substance less than its shadow. To convey the meaning of something substantial you have to use not a shadow but a sign, not the limitation but the image. The image is a new and different reality, and of course it does not convey an impression of some object, but the mind of the subject; and that is something else again.
love selfish loving-others
We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves. But a selfish love of ourselves makes us incapable of loving others.
wells
Life reveals itself to us only in so far as well live it.
love love-is doors
Love is the door to eternity.
winter winter-love plant
Love winter when the plant says nothing.
solitude rebel failing
Solitude is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient solitude to develop the inner life of the persons who compose it, they rebel and seek false solitudes.
men world way
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.
acceptance people risk
I stand among you as one who offers a small message of hope. . . there are always people who dare to seek on the margin of society, who are not dependent on social acceptance, not dependent on social routine, and prefer a kind of free-floating existence under a state of risk.
revenge pride temptation
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.
love-is law-of-attraction capacity-to-love
The gift of love is the gift of the power and capacity to love, and therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received.
sin illusion pure
The center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth.
writing journal
My best writing has always been in journals.