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Thomas Merton

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Famous Thomas Merton Quotes

“The danger of education, I have found, is that it so easily confuses means with ends. Worse than that, it quite easily forgets both and devotes itself merely to the mass production of uneducated gradtuates - people literaly unfit for anything except to take part in an elaborate and completely artificial charade which they and their contemporaries have conspired to call "life".”

PeopleMeanEndsFoundForgetAtheismDangerMassProductionsArtificialUneducatedMass ProductionCharades
Book:Love and Living
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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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“Let me say this before rain becomes a utility that they can plan and distribute for money. By "they" I mean the people who cannot understand that rain is a festival, who do not appreciate its gratuity, who think that what has no price has no value, that what cannot be sold is not real, so that the only way to make something actual is to place it on the market. The time will come when they will sell you even your rain. At the moment it is still free, and I am in it. I celebrate its gratuity and its meaninglessness.”

PeopleThinkingWayMeanStillsRealMomentsValuesWaterPlansRainAppreciateLet MeSellsEnvironmentalCelebrateFestivalsUtilityMeaninglessnessGratuity
Book:Raids on the Unspeakable
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“The illusion that mechanical progress means human improvement ... alienates us from our own being and our own reality. It is precisely because we are convinced that our life, as such, is better if we have a better car, a better TV set, better toothpaste, etc., that we condemn and destroy our own reality and the reality of our natural resources. Technology was made for man, not man for technology. In losing touch with being and thus with God, we have fallen into a senseless idolatry of production and consumption for their own sakes.”

IfsMenHumansMeanMadeRealityNaturalTechnologyOur LivesProgressCarTvsLosingIllusionResourcesSakeProductionsConvincedImprovementFallenEtcConsumptionConsumerismIdolatryNatural ResourcesOverconsumptionToothpaste
Book:Seeds
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“In the natural order no matter what ideals may be theoretically possible, most people more or less live for themselves and for their own interests and pleasures or for those of their own family or group, and therefore they are constantly interfering with one another's aims, and hurting one another and injuring one another, whether they mean it or not.”

PeopleMayMeanMatterOrderInterestNaturalHurtPleasureGroupsIdealsAimNo Matter WhatInterfereNatural Order
Book:The Seven Storey Mountain
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“It is true to say that for me sanctity consists in being myself and for you sanctity consists of being yourself and that, in the last analysis, your sanctity will never be mine and mine will never be yours, except in the communism of charity and grace. For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”

MeanSelfFactsProblemLastsGraceMinesFindingsSalvationCharitySaintWho I AmCommunismAnalysisBeing YourselfDiscoveringTrue SelfSanctityBeing Myself
Author:Thomas Merton
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“For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." This doubt is by no means opposed to genuine faith, but it mercilessly examines and questions the spurious "faith" of everyday life, the human faith which is nothing but the passive acceptance of conventional opinion.”

HumansMeanGrowthOpinionDoubtAcceptanceGainsEverydayGenuineConventionalPassiveSuperficialEveryday LifeCorrespondingCertitude
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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“Contemplation in the age of Auschwitz and Dachau, Solovky and Karaganda is something darker and more fearsome than contemplation in the age of the Church Fathers. For that very reason, the urge to seek a path of spiritual light can be a subtle temptation to sin. It certainly is sin if it means a frank rejection of the burden of our age, an escape into unreality and spiritual illusion, so as not to share the misery of other men.”

IfsMenMeanReasonLightAgeSpiritualFatherChurchSinPathShareIllusionMiseryBurdenTemptationContemplationRejectionSubtleUrgesFrankAuschwitzUnrealitySpiritual LightChurch FathersDachau
Author:Thomas Merton
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“Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a 'means of livelihood' while he waits to discover his 'true vocation'. The world is full of unsuccessful businessmen who still secretly believe they were meant to be artists or writers or actors in the movies.”

WorldBelieveMeanStillsWisdomJobsArtistActorsWaitingAcceptingWillingSatisfiedLimitationMeant To BeBusinessmanVocationLivelihoodUnsuccessfulWere Meant To Be
Book:Seeds
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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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“To be risen with Christ means not only that one has a choice and that one may live by a higher law - the law of grace and love - but that one must do so. The first obligation of the Christian is to maintain their freedom from all superstitions, all blind taboos and religious formalities, indeed from all empty forms of legalism.”

FirstsMayMeanChristianFormLawChoicesChristReligiousGraceHigherEmptyAnd LoveBlindObligationLive BySuperstitionsTabooRisenFormalityLegalismHigher LawGrace And Love
Book:He is risen
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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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“To some men peace merely means the liberty to exploit other people without fear of retaliation or interference. To others peace means the freedom to rob others without interruption. To still others it means the leisure to devour the goods of the earth without being compelled to interrupt their pleasures to feed those whom their greed is starving. And to practically everybody peace simply means the absence of any physical violence that might cast a shadow over lives devoted to the satisfaction of their animal appetites for comfort and pleasure.”

PeopleMenMeanStillsMightEarthPleasureAnimalLibertyViolenceComfortShadowGreedCastsSatisfactionAbsenceGoodsAppetiteLeisureDevotedCompelledStarvingExploitsInterferenceInterruptionsRetaliationPhysical Violence
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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