Thomas Merton Quotes

The fruit of solitude is increased sensitivity and compassion for others. There comes a new freedom to be with people. There is new attentiveness to their needs, new responsiveness to their hurts. Thomas Merton observes, 'It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them.... Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.

Love means the art of being with others. Meditation means the art of being with yourself. Both are two aspects of the same coin.

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.

I aspire only to silence.

I'm a very interior person. I love silence. I revel in it. I'm happy that way.

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

Solitude is the place of purification.

There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. I can understand the concept of being a monk for a while.

Learn to be quiet enough to hear the genuine within yourself so that you can hear it in others.

What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.

Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone's face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.

Stay in your heart.

When you practice Buddhism, you have to always self-reflect, and you can't avoid your problems. That makes me understand human beings better. I feel that the more I do that in my own life, the more I can see how to play a character.

When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves, then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.

When you walk 10 hours, 11 hours a day by yourself, you are doing a walking meditation.

Nothing makes us love a person as much as praying for him.

We experience God to the extent to which we love, forgive, and focus on the good in others and ourselves.

My whole teaching consists of two words, meditation and love.

Make your judgment trustworthy by trusting it. Cultivate regular periods of silence and meditation. The best time to build judgment is in solitude, when you can think out things for yourself without the probability of interruption.

Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit, simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justificat ion

I like the idea of going to one of those retreats where you don't speak - like, silence for five days.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit.