Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Merton

“For since man has decided to occupy the place of God he has shown himself to be by far the blindest, and cruelest, and pettiest, and most ridiculous of all the false gods.”

“My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. So what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.”

“If the deepest ground of my being is love, then in that very love and nowhere else will I find myself, the world, and my brother and sister in Christ. It is not a question of either-or but of all-in-one. It is not a matter of exclusivity and “purity” but of wholeness, wholeheartedness, unity, and of Meister Eckhart’s gleichheit (equality) which finds the same ground of love”

“This “ground,” this “world” where I am mysteriously present at once to my own self and to the freedoms of all other men, is not a visible, objective and determined structure with fixed laws and demands. It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself my own unique door.”

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“to put words together in a such a way that they exercise a mysterious and vital reactivity among themselves, and so release their secret content of associations to produce in the reader an experience that enriches the depths of his spirit in a manner quite unique.”

“People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”

“Life is simple: We are living in a word that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God manifests Himself everywhere, in everything--in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that He is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. You cannot be without God. It's impossible. It's simple impossible. The only thing is that we don't see it. What is it that makes the world opaque? It is care.”

“(Excerpt from Leaving Things Alone) You train your eye and your vision lusts after colour. You train your ear, and you long for delightful sound. You delight in doing good, and your natural kindness is blown out of shape. You delight in righteousness, and you become righteous beyond all reason.”

“There is only now.”

“The things that we love tell us what we are.”

“The madman runs to the East and his keeper runs to the East, both are running to the East. Their purposes differ.”

“The art of using troops is this: When ten to the enemy's one, surround him; When five times his strength, attack him (if my force is five times that of the enemy I alarm him to the front, surprise him to the rear, create an uproar in the east and strike in the west); If double his strength, divide him (if a two-to-one superiority is insufficient to manipulate the situation, we use a distracting force to divide his army); If equally matched you may engage him (in these circumstances only the able general can win); If weaker numerically, be capable of withdrawing (if I am in good order and the enemy in disarray, if I am energetic and he careless, then, even if he be numerically stronger, I can give battle); And if in all respects unequal, be capable of eluding him, for a small force is but booty for one more powerful (the small certainly cannot equal the large, nor can the weak match the strong, nor the few the many).”

“- الحرب المثالية هي الحرب السريعة؛ فالحرب الطويلة استنزاف للمنتصر كما هي للخاسر.”

“- لا تكرر التكتيك الذي فزت به سابقاً، ابتكر غيره او عدله بطريقة غير متوقعة.”

“When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixes duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.”

“Do not press an enemy at bay. Wild beasts, when at bay, fight desperately. How much more is this true of men! If they know there is no alternative they will fight to the death.”

“He who does not know theevilsof war cannot appreciate its benefits,”

“El que se enfrenta al oponente durante varios años para luchar por la victoria en una batalla decisiva, pero que por su codicia y su anhelo de honores, permanece ignorante de la situación del oponente; está totalmente desprovisto de humanidad. Un hombre así no tiene nada de comandante, no es un apoyo para su soberano y no es el dueño de la victoria.”

“• إذا كنا - في خضم مشاكلنا - مستعدين لانتهاز أي فرصة قد تتاح لنا، فيمكننا أن نُخرج أنفسنا من مأزقنا.”