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Thomas Merton

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Famous Thomas Merton Quotes

“First, the desert is the country of madness. Second, it is the refuge of the devil, thrown out into the "wilderness of upper Egypt" to "wander in dry places." Thirst drives man mad, and the devil himself is mad with a kind of thirst for his own lost excellence--lost because he has immured himself in it and closed out everything else. So the man who wanders into the desert to be himself must take care that he does not go mad and become the servant of the one who dwells there in a sterile paradise of emptiness and rage.”

MenFirstsKindDoeCountryCareLostHe ManDevilMadnessMadExcellenceTake CareRageWanderDesertServantParadiseDryEmptinessThrownWildernessRefugeThirstEgypt
Book:Thoughts In Solitude
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“I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process. Reason is a faculty, reasoning an exercise of that faculty. Reasoning proceeds from one truth to another by means of argumentation. This generally involves the whole mind in labor and complexity. But reason does not exist merely in order to engage in reasoning. The process is a means to an end. The true fulfillment of reason as a faculty is found when it can embrace the truth simply and without labor in the light of single intuition.”

MindMeanDoeEndsReasonWholeLightOrderFoundProcessDifferencesAttentionReaderExerciseLaborEmbraceIntuitionFulfillmentComplexityReasoningFacultyMeans To An EndArgumentation
Book:The Ascent to Truth
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“Detachment from things does not mean setting up a contradiction between 'things' and 'God' as if God were another thing and as if creatures were His rivals. We do not detach ourselves from things in order to attach ourselves to God, but rather we become detached from ourselves in order to see and use all things in and for God.”

IfsMeanDoeUseSpiritualOrderCreaturesAll ThingsSettingSettingsContradictionRivalsDetachmentDetached
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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“... 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.”

MindDoeDifferentUseRealityCoursesSubjectsObjectsShadowPhotographImpressionLimitationSubstanceDifferent Realities
Author:Thomas Merton
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“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.”

KnowsDoeUsePowerfulSawsMaterialsScenePhotographyIllusionCamerasUnconsciousCapture
Book:The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton
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“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. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.”

TryingDoeEndsWisdomSufferingHurtTortureProportionInsignificantPain And SufferingBeing HurtWorld SufferingSuffering And PainSuffering PainPain SufferingInsignificant Things
Book:The Seven Storey Mountain
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“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your Will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.”

ThinkingKnowsBelieveMeanDoeIdeasEndsFactsInspirationDesireCertainFaithI BelieveLordPleaseFollowingChristian InspirationalNo IdeaLord God
Book:Dialogues with Silence: Prayers & Drawings
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“The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.”

PeopleMenWayFeelsMeanDoeEnoughFeelingsWisdomDreamRealityLightHeavenSinPoorHellGraceFoolColdOughtCreaturesFindingsDevilShadowIntellectClaritySubstanceChillObscuritySpineDo Not FearPsychosisFinding Out The Truth
Author:Thomas Merton
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“Nonviolence seeks to ‘win’ not by destroying or even by humiliating the adversary, but by convincing [the adversary] that there is a higher and more certain common good than can be attained by bombs and blood. Nonviolence, ideally speaking, does not try to overcome the adversary by winning over [them], but to turn [them] from an adversary into a collaborator by winning [them] over.”

TryingDoeCertainTurnsWinningCommonBloodHigherOvercomingBombsDestroyingNonviolenceConvincingAdversariesCommon GoodHumiliatingCollaborators
Book:The Nonviolent Alternative
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“The silence of the spheres is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness. But it does not matter much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things, or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there.”

DoeMatterWisdomRealityJoyPurposeSilenceSadnessStrangeDespairComplexesSpheresCosmicPersistMisunderstandingStainsJoyfulnessFinality
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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“For language to have meaning, there must be intervals of silence somewhere, to divide word from word and utterance from utterance. He who retires into silence does not necessarily hate language. Perhaps it is love and respect for language which imposes silence upon him. For the mercy of God is not heard in words unless it is heard, both before and after the words are spoken, in silence.”

DoeHateLanguageSilenceHeardMercyDividesRetiringIntervalsUtteranceLove And RespectBefore And AfterMercy Of God
Book:The Power and Meaning of Love
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“Not only does silence give us a chance to understand ourselves better, to get a truer and more balanced perspective on our own lives in relation to the lives of others: silence makes us whole if we let it. Silence helps draw together the scattered and dissipated energies of a fragmented existence.”

IfsGivingDoeWholeHelpingTogetherEnergyChanceExistenceSilencePerspectiveDrawsRelationBalancedLives Of OthersFragmentedGive Us A Chance
Book:Love and Living
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“What does it mean to know and experience my own “nothingness?” It is not enough to turn away in disgust from my illusions and faults and mistakes, to separate myself from them as if they were not, and as if I were someone other than myself. This kind of self-annihilati on is only a worse illusion, it is a pretended humility which, by saying “I am nothing” I mean in effect “I wish I were not what I am.”

IfsKnowsKindMeanDoeSelfEnoughTurnsWishMy OwnMistakeEffectsHumilityIllusionFaultsDisgustingNothingness
Book:Thoughts In Solitude
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“Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of memories. If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten. Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past. A memory that is not alive to the present does not remember the here and now, does not remember its true identity, is not memory at all. He who remembers nothing but facts and past events, and is never brought back into the present, is a victim of amnesia.”

IfsFirstsDoeFactsPastRememberMemoriesAliveEventsIdentityThousandVictimForgottenCrowdsRuinedHere And NowAmnesiaTrue IdentityPast Events
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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