Home / Quotes / Quote by Thomas Merton

Quote by Thomas Merton

“When solitude was a problem, I had no solitude. When it ceased to be a problem I found I already possessed it, and could have possessed it all along.”

Quote by Thomas Merton

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

You May Also Like

“It feels like a ghost town to me. And that’s a good thing. Steve LeBlanc”

Humor Solitude Ghost Towns

Book:Abandoned Randsburg: The Mojave Desert's Liveliest Ghost Town

Source: Abandoned Randsburg: The Mojave Desert's Liveliest Ghost Town

“Our American culture paints a picture of masculinity where a man is an island. A lone cowboy on the prairie smoking marlboros. A caped crusader who works better alone. A dad in his den, reading the paper, shooing the kids away so he can unwind. But this lone ranger mentality is dangerous. Even the actual Lone Ranger had Tonto. We are not made to be alone.”

Friendship Solitude Brotherhood Manhood Masculinity Togetherness Manlihood Lone Ranger

Author:Josh Hatcher

“What happened to Kafka is the same as what happened to me. He withdrew, he went too far into solitude and knew he must have known, you never come back from there.”

Author:Alejandra Pizarnik

“No matter how much he loved someone, he still couldn't share his life with them. He needed solitary time every day to concentrate, and he couldn't stand it when someone's presence threw off his concentration. If he lived with someone he knew he would end up detesting them. Whether it was his parents, a wife, or children. He feared that above all. He wasn't afraid of loving someone. What he feared was growing to hate someone.”

Book:Killing Commendatore

Source: Killing Commendatore

“Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs— To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music lest it should not find An echo in another's mind, While the touch of Nature's art Harmonizes heart to heart.”

Poetry Nature Solitude

Book:The Complete Poems

Source: The Complete Poems

“This was the sound he cherished when alone in the stillness of his rooms. He sought and guarded the stillness, so that it might prevail there till the inevitable sounds of life, once more, comparatively coarse and harsh, should smother and deaden it—doubtless by the same process with which they would officiously heal the ache in his soul that was somehow one with it.”

Book:The Wings of the Dove

Source: The Wings of the Dove

“So strange is the human being that in the midst of my new life and fulfilled wishes, I was sometimes aware of a slight, fleeting, subconscious desire for solitude, for even boring and empty days. It seemed to me that the time I had spent at home and the dreary uneventful life from which I was so glad to escape, was something desirable.”

Solitude Boredom Gertrude Hermann Hesse Grass Is Greener Vicissitudes Of Life

Book:Gertrude

Source: Gertrude

“It wasn’t the first time someone had disappeared from my life due to my own fault: due to my tendency to solitude and silence, dut to my sometimes unjustifiable reserve, due to my inability to keep relationships alive (even those I have with people I love or who genuinely interest me). This has always been one of my great defects, and it has caused me more than one disappointment and has dissapointed other more than once. There’s nothing I can do aboutn it, however, because nobody changes their nature by the mere force of will.”

Solitude Introvert Recluse

Book:La forma de las ruinas

Source: La forma de las ruinas

“Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, Our own felicity we make or find.”

Happiness Solitude

Book:The Deserted Village, The Traveler, and Other Poems

Source: The Deserted Village, The Traveler, and Other Poems

“One of those small but sharp recollections that return, lacerating your self-respect like tiny penknives, and forcing from your lips, as you sit alone, sudden, insane-sounding interjections.”

Solitude Memory Embarrassment

Book:Shirley

Source: Shirley