Thomas Merton Quotes

"We stumble and fall constantly even when we are most enlightened. But when we are in true spiritual darkness, we do not even know that we have fallen."

"Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity."

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

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."

"The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom."

"The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error."

"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"

"Faith is a light of such supreme brilliance that it dazzles the mind and darkens all its visions of other realities, but in the end when we become used to the new light, we gain a new view of all reality transfigured and elevated in the light itself."

"Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward."

"I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me."

"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."

"We do not exist for ourselves."

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone-we find it with another."

"Perhaps I am stronger than I think"

"We have to have a deep, patient compassion for the fears of men and irrational mania of those who hate or condemn us."

"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real"

"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real."

"Wheels of fire, cosmic, rich, full-bodied honest victories over desperation."

"Perhaps I am stronger than I think."

"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"