Thomas Merton Quotes About Life
-
Learn how to meditate on paper. Drawing and writing are forms of meditation. Learn how to contemplate works of art. Learn how to pray in the streets or in the country. Know how to meditate not only when you have a book in your hand but when you are waiting for a bus or riding in a train.
→ -
Today will never come again.
→ -
We do not exist for ourselves.
→ -
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.
→ -
When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.
→ -
The meaning of life is found in openness to being and "being present" in full awareness.
→ -
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!
→ -
Do not be too quick to assume your enemy is a savage just because he is your enemy. Perhaps he is your enemy because he thinks you are a savage. Or perhaps he is afraid of you because he feels that you are afraid of him. And perhaps if he believed you are capable of loving him he would no longer be your enemy.
→ -
Persons are not known by intellect alone, not by principles alone, but only by love. It is when we love the other, the enemy, that we obtain from God the key to an understanding of who he is, and who we are. It is only this realization that can open to us the real nature of our duty, and of right action.
→ -
No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning.
→ -
A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.
→ -
... but any fool knows that you don't need money to get enjoyment out of life.
→ -
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reasoning and analysis, but first of all by living. For until we have begun to live our prudence has no material to work on. And until we have begun to fail we have no way of working out our success.
→ -
To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.
→
Related Authors
-
Ernesto Cardenal Priest -
Mahatma Gandhi Civil rights leader -
John Howard Griffin Journalist -
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Pastor -
Rainer Maria Rilke Poet -
John of the Cross Saint -
-
Anthony de Mello Writer -
Henri Nouwen Priest -
Richard J. Foster Author -
Teresa of Avila Saint -
Flannery O'Connor Writer -
Paul Elie Writer -
Dorothy Day Journalist -
James Finley Politician -
Jean Vanier Philosopher -
-
Zhuangzi Philosopher -
Richard Rohr Priest -
Nhat Hanh Monk