Thomas Merton Quotes

In order to find God in ourselves, we must stop looking at ourselves, stop checking and verifying ourselves in the mirror of our own futility, and be content to be in Him and to do whatever He wills, according to our limitations, judging our acts not in the light of our own illusions, but in the light of His reality which is all around us in the things and people we live with.

I try to make my life about service, and hope that one day we can all 'see' a little better because God is with everyone and everywhere.

The Beduin could not look for God within him: he was too sure that he was within God.

The mind is a great gift, but it has to be quieted down in order to feel, hear and see the presence of God.

All around the world, we are gazing skyward waiting for God… Never realizing that God is waiting for us.

God is a feeling experience and not a believing experience. If your religion is a believing experience ... then that's not truly God.

The outer world, with all its phenomena, is filled with divine splendour, but we must have experienced the divine within ourselves, before we can discover it in our environment

Everything is Spirit - in essence, though hidden in manifestation. If you had the perception, you would see God in everything.

So really what it comes down to, it's God. Wherever you look, it's God appearing as this, that, that...and what you really love and appreciate in each form is the divine formless out of which each form comes. But to be able to sense that you have to sense it in yourself first. And that is seeing the beauty in everything, that's really what it means.

God is nearer to me than I am to myself; He is just as near to wood and stone, but they do not know it.

In order to see Jesus, we first need to let him look at us!

Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.

To see everything in God and to see God in everything normally takes a lifetime of practice.

To know God, know your heart (conscience). After you know your heart, you will learn to see God in all things. Truth can only be seen by those with Truth in them.

The soul of God is poured into the world through the thoughts of men.

The knowledge of the omnipresence of God also means respect for the lives even of those who may be called opponents.

Meditation tells you only one thing: God is. Meditation reveals to you only one truth: yours is the vision of God.

We are called to be contemplatives. ..by seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, everywhere, all the time.

It is the root of all religion that a man knows that he is nothing in order to thank God that he is something.

The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object.

All that you seek is already within you. In Hinduism it is called the Atman, in Buddhism the pure Buddha-Mind. Christ said, 'the kingdom of heaven is within you.' Quakers call it the ‘still small voice within.’ This is the space of full awareness that is in harmony with all the universe, and thus is wisdom itself.

When you turn to God you discover He has been facing you all the time.

When we turn the mind inwards, God manifests as the inner consciousness.

To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.

What good is all our busy religion if God isn't in it? What good is it if we've lost majesty, reverence, worship-an awareness of the divine? What good is it if we've lost a sense of the Presence and the ability to retreat within our own hearts and meet God in the garden?