Thomas Merton Quotes

The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain.

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

I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes.

I use solitude as a judge and as a person - a lot.

I love just being in the sphere of nothingness looking inwards.

We've known about the transcendent power of solitude for centuries; it's only recently that we've forgotten it.

Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.

Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think....In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think.

You grow your best thoughts in silence, solitude, and meditation. When you relax and think deeply, you are giving your inmost powers their best opportunity to disclose themselves.

If you spend enough time with yourself in silence, you'll be surprised what goes through your head.

I aspire only to silence.

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.

Being alone & actually sitting with our own thoughts can lead to such growth and realizations that are rare in our everyday busy lives.

We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly - spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.

I don't think we spend enough time in silence, just realizing what's floating around in our noggin.

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.

Sit with silence a lot - real silence, where nothing is happening - because you learn so much in those moments of quiet.

To develop our real selves, we need time alone for thought and meditation. To be always giving out and never pumping in, the well runs dry.

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

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.

Inspiration comes to us slowly and quietly . prime it with a little solitude.

When one is a stranger to oneself, then one is estranged from others, too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. Only when one is connected to one's own core, is one connected to others. And for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be re-found through silence.

It was solitude, but it was solitude that wasn't lonely. Solitude that could sort things out. And he hadn't had that in ages.

I would say to today's young minister, 'Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation'.

listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world, and you will remember the lesson you forgot