Thomas Merton

The least of the work of learning is done in the classroom.

The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.

I am willing to admit that some people might live there for years, or even a lifetime, so protected that they never sense the sweet stench of corruption that is all around them - the keen, thin scent of decay that pervades everything and accuses with a terrible accusation the superficial youthfulness, the abounding undergraduate noise, that fills those ancient buildings.

....it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning.

Prayer is not so much a way to find God as a way of resting in him...who loves us, who is near to us.

The meaning of life is found in openness to being and "being present" in full awareness.

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly _x000D_ themselves.

We are already ONE. We just think we are separate.

The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer.

Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace.

A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him.... The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like Him.

Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.

For me to be a saint means to be myself.

The humble person receives praise the way a clean window takes the light of the sun. The truer and more intense the light is, the less you see of the glass.

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.

We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us. But we make ourselves true inside by manifesting the truth as we see it.

If we have not silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest God, does not bless our work.

Art is not an end in itself. It introduces the soul into a higher spiritual order, which it expresses and in some sense explains.

It might be good to open our eyes and see.

You cannot be a man of faith unless you know how to doubt.

Stop thinking and start looking.