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
silence doe bless
If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our work.
love-is sake doe
Love is free; it does not depend on the desirability of its object, but loves for love's sake.
sake way doe
Cupidity...takes created things for ends in themselves, which they are not. The will that seeks rest in creatures for their own sake stops on the way to its true end, terminates in a value which does not exist, and thus frustrates all its deepest capacities for happiness and peace.
beautiful doe dull
Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life.
photography powerful doe
The camera does not know what it takes; it captures materials with which you reconstruct, not so much what you saw as what you thought you saw. Hence the best photography is aware, mindful, of illusion and uses illusion, permitting and encouraging it - especially unconscious and powerful illusions that are not usually admitted on the scene.
giving-up self doe
Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.
two doe compare
Love not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two.
belongs center disposes entirely fantasies god mind point pure sin spark spirit-and-spirituality
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will.
alone life love meaning ourselves true valentines-day
Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.
less
The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.
anxiety avoid begin fear hurt people proportion smaller suffering torture truth until
The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt
compassion condemn fears hate irrational mania men patient
We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of men and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us.
spiritual encounters christ
True encounter with Christ liberates something within us, a power we did not know we had, a capacity to grow and change.
power men guarantees
For power can guarantee the interests of some men but it can never foster the good of man. Power always protects the good of some at the expense of all the others. Only love can attain and preserve the good of all. Any claim to build the security of all on force is a manifest imposture.