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
imagination certain should
The imagination should be allowed a certain amount of time to browse around.
learning done classroom
The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom.
christian joy ashes
Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast.
pants praying breathe
What I do is live, how I pray is breathe, what I wear is pants.
crow mind glitter
Our minds are like crows. They pick up everything that glitters, no matter how uncomfortable our nests get with all that metal in them.
beauty reality important
One of the most important-and most neglected-elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendour that is all around us.
wisdom decision useless
If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision.
spiritual wisdom men
Every moment and every event of everyman's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men.
love-is perfection our-love
Business is not the supreme virtue, and sanctity is not measured by the amount of work we accomplish. Perfection is found in the purity of our love for God, and this pure love is a delicate plant that grows best where there is plenty of time for it to mature
believe angel grace
The peculiar grace of a Shaker chair is due to the fact that it was made by someone capable of believing that an angel might come and sit on it.
spiritual men meditation
Meditation is one of the ways in which the spiritual man keeps himself awake.
wisdom artist ruins
Hurry ruins saints as well as artists.
being-true manifest knows
We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us. But we make ourselves true inside by manifesting the truth as we see it.
love wisdom prayer
Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone.