Thomas Merton

When society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, then society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment and hate.

People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell.

I see no contradiction between Buddhism and Christianity ... I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.

The things I thought were so important -- because of the effort I put into them -- have turned out to be of small value. And the things I never thought about, the things I was never able to either to measure or to expect, were the things that mattered.

Either you look at the universe as a very poor creation out of which no one can make anything, or you look at your own life and your own part in the universe as infinitely rich, full of inexhaustible interest, opening out into the infinite further responsibilities for study and contemplation and interest and praise. Beyond all and in all is God.

The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of a certain type of Christian thought has seriously impaired this capacity, which nonviolence must recover.

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.

Our real journey in life is interior.

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.

It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God.

The degradation of the sense of symbol in modern society is one of its many signs of spiritual decay.

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.

October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful.

The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error.

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

The very contradictions in my life are in some ways signs of God's mercy to me.

Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him, requires a lot of courage and know-how.

When ambition ends, happiness begins.

If you want to study the social and political history of modern nations, study hell.

Be good, keep your feet dry, your eyes open, your heart at peace and your soul in the joy of Christ.

We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.