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Thomas Merton

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Famous Thomas Merton Quotes

“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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“One thing is certain: the humility of faith, if it is followed by the proper consequences-by the acceptance of the work and sacrifice demanded by our providential task-will do far more to launch us into the full current of historical reality than the pompous rationalizations of politicians who think they are somehow the directors and manipulators of history.”

IfsThinkingRealityCertainOne ThingSacrificeAcceptanceHumilityPoliticianDirectorsConsequenceTasksHistoricalCurrentsPompousManipulator
Author:Thomas Merton
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“Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you re-read your journal you find out that your latest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas and the same experiences.”

ThinkingYearsStillsIdeasSometimesFoundFiveTaughtDiscoveryYears AgoDeeperFive YearsJournalPenetrateKeeping A Journal
Book:The Sign of Jonas
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“The lights of prayer that make us imagine we are beginning to be angels are sometimes only signs that we are finally beginning to be men. We do not have a high enough opinion of our own nature. We think we are at the gates of heaven and we are only just beginning to come into our own realm as free and intelligent beings.”

ThinkingMenSometimesEnoughWisdomLightHeavenPrayerOpinionImagineAngelIntelligentRealmsGatesBe A ManGates Of Heaven
Book:The Ascent to Truth
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“I just remember their kindness and goodness to me, and their peacefulness and their utter simplicity. They inspired real reverence, and I think, in a way, they were certainly saints. And they were saints in that most effective and telling way: sanctified by leading ordinary lives in a completely supernatural manner, sanctified by obscurity, by usual skills, by common tasks, by routine, but skills, tasks, routine which received a supernatural form from grace within.”

ThinkingWayRealRememberFormCommonKindnessGraceSkillsGoodnessOrdinaryTasksInspiredSimplicitySaintRoutineUsualReverenceObscurityOrdinary LifePeacefulness
Author:Thomas Merton
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“Day after day I read Freud, thinking myself to be very enlightened and scientific when, as a matter of fact, I was about as scientific as an old woman secretly poring over books about occultism, trying to tell her own fortune, and learning how to dope out the future form the lines in the palm of her hand. I don't know if I ever got very close to needing a padded cell: but if I ever had gone crazy, I think psychoanalysis would have been the one thing chiefly responsible for it.”

IfsThinkingKnowsTryingHas BeensBookMatterFactsWisdomHandsFormLinesGoneOne ThingCrazyResponsibleFortuneCellsEnlightenedPalmsPsychoanalysisMatter Of FactDopeOld WomanGone Crazy
Author:Thomas Merton
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“A purely mental life may be destructive if it leads us to substitute thought for life and ideas for actions. The activity proper to man is purely mental because man is not just a disembodied mind. Our destiny is to live out what we think, because unless we live what we know, we do not even know it. It is only by making our knowledge part of ourselves, through action, that we enter into the reality that is signified by our concepts.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenMindMayIdeasRealityActionDestinyActivityConceptsDestructiveSubstitutesOur Destiny
Book:Thoughts In Solitude
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“Everything in modern city life is calculated to keep man from entering into himself and thinking about spiritual things. Even with the best of intentions a spiritual man finds himself exhausted and deadened and debased by the constant noise of machines and loudspeakers, the dead air and the glaring lights of offices and shops, the everlasting suggestion of advertising and propaganda. The whole mechanism of modern life is geared for a flight from God and from the spirit into the wilderness of neurosis.”

ThinkingMenWholeLightSpiritualLife IsSpiritCitiesMeditationAirModernOfficeMachinesConstantIntentionNoiseFlightAdvertisingPropagandaShopsWildernessMechanismExhaustedSuggestionsEnteringEverlastingModern LifeNeurosisCity Life
Author:Thomas Merton
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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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“After all, what is your personal identity? It is what you really are, your real self. None of us is what he thinks he is, or what other people think he is, still less what his passport says he is. And it is fortunate for most of us that we are mistaken. We do not generally know what is good for us. That is because, in St. Bernard's language, our true personality has been concealed under the 'disguise' of a false self, the ego, whom we tend to worship in place of God.”

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Author:Thomas Merton
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“Because You have called me here not to wear a label by which I can recognize myself and place myself in some kind of a category. You do not want me to be thinking about what I am, but about what You are. Or rather, You do not even want me to be thinking about anything much: for You would raise me above the level of thought. And if I am always trying to figure out what I am and where I am and why I am, how will that work be done?”

IfsThinkingWantTryingKindI CanDoneWisdomLevelsFiguresRaisesLabelsCategoriesWant MeAlways Trying
Book:The Seven Storey Mountain
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