Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Merton
“If language is deprived of what is indirect in it, its nature approaches that of a scream or order. Friendliness and politeness are also based on the circuitous and indirect. The orientation of violence, by contrast, is towards directness.”
“The suffering at such times [of bereavement] can be great, I know. But it is somehow comforting to learn, even through suffering, how large and powerful love is.”
“We find ourselves in a historical moment of pervasive mediocrity. Fuelled by basic human drives - flights from death and boredom - the new technologies, bright and all consuming, increasingly blur the lines between direct experience and representation. A photograph of an apple is not food and the Internet has neither scent nor texture.”
“If you look at human thinking in terms of determinism, then you could say that the human mind is an algorithm, no different than a computer. But in my personal thinking, there are two profound differences: a computer algorithm is not curious, and a computer algorithm doesn't feel.”
“Church again. My prayer is now only, ‘Here I am again. Show me what to do; help me do it.”
“I understand conservatism. He is one of the genuine conservatives: he wishes to conserve not what might be lost but what is not even threatened because it vanished long ago.”
“Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person of false self. I wind my experiences around myself and cover myself with glory like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the world as if I were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface.”
“The madman runs to the East and his keeper runs to the East, both are running to the East. Their purposes differ.”
“If a writer is so cautious that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never be able to write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people you have got to make up your mind to write things that some men will condemn.”
“Love is free; it does not depend on the desirability of its object, but loves for love's sake.”
topics: love
“Gerçek anlamda derin düşünme; psikolojik bir hile değil, teolojik bir lütuftur.”
“Zašto bih ja trebao biti bogat kada si ti bio siromašan? Zašto bih ja želio biti slavan i moćan u očima ljudi kada su sinovi onih koji su slavili lažne proroke i kamenovali one prave tebe odbili i prikovali na križ? Zašto bih u srcu gajio nadu koja me izjeda - nadu u savršenu sreću u ovome životu - kada takva nada, osuđena na propast, nije ništa drugo doli beznađe? Moja je nada u onome što oko ne vidje. Zato ne daj da se uzdam u vidljive nagrade.”
“Stagnation and inactivity bring spiritual death.”
“All theology is a kind of birthday Each one who is born Comes into the world as a question For which old answers Are not sufficient…”
“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody’s business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy”
“If I penetrate to the depths of my existence, the indefinable, am, that is myself in its deepest roots, then through this deep center I pass into the infinite I am, which is the very nature of the Almighty.”
“There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura Naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a fountain of action and of joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being...”
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Thomas Merton wrote more than 70 books, mostly on spirituality, as well as scores of essays and reviews. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding.
Interest in his work contributed to a rise in spiritual exploration beginning in the 1960s and 1970s in the US. Merton's letters and diaries, reveal the intensity with which their author focused on social justice issues, including the civil rights movement and proliferation of nuclear arms. He had prohibited their publication for 25 years after his death. Publication raised new interest in Merton's life.