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Quote by Thomas Merton

“The Hindus are not looking for us to send them men who will build schools and hospitals, although those things are good and useful in themselves--and perhaps very badly needed in India: they want to know if we have any saints to send them.”

Quote by Thomas Merton

Book:The Seven Storey Mountain

Work

The Seven Storey Mountain

The Seven Storey Mountain is a memoir that chronicles the author's transformation from a secular existence to a life of religious devotion. The narrative takes readers through the author's struggles with his own identity and purpose, ultimately leading to his conversion and commitment to a religious order. more

Author

Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 - December 10, 1968) was an American writer, poet, social critic, and mystic. His works covered a wide range of topics including philosophy, religion, and social justice, and were highly appreciated by readers. more

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“How deluded we sometimes are by the clear notions we get out of books. They make us think that we really understand things of which we have no practical knowledge at all.”

Thinking Book Sometimes Wisdom Clear Notion Practicals Deluded Practical Knowledge

Book:The Seven Storey Mountain

Source: The Seven Storey Mountain

“What are you afraid of then? Not Being able to see, I think not seeing because your obsessed by something that blots out the world.”

Thinking World Able Seeing Obsessed

Book:A Song for Summer

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“What do you want to want to be, anyway?" "I don't know; I guess what I want to be is a good Catholic." "What you should say"--he told me--"what you should say is that you want to be a saint.”

Knows Want Should Catholic Saint

Author:Thomas Merton

“French: why does this language even exist? Everyone there speaks english anyway.”

Doe Speak Language Speak English

Book:Royally Obsessed

Source: Royally Obsessed

“The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!”

Ifs Men Life Real Wisdom Lasts Imagination Opinion Strange Depends Perfection Logic Errors Worldly Applause Fallacy Weird Life

Book:The Seven Storey Mountain

Source: The Seven Storey Mountain

“We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are travelling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore in that sense we have arrived and are dwelling in the light. But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!”

Wisdom Light Perfect Darkness Grace Possession This Life Dwelling

Author:Thomas Merton

“My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.”

Source: Lolita

“I feel like a fox in a henhouse full of Catholic girls.”

Feels Girl Catholic Foxes

Book:Spellbound: Book Six

Source: Spellbound: Book Six

“Living was okay, but it wasn't the breaths people took that measured a life. It was the moments that took those breaths away that mattered the most. And Dev did that every time he looked at her. Naked or not.”

People Moments Okay Breaths Naked

Book:No Mercy

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“Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.”

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Book:Herzog

Source: Herzog