Thomas Merton Quotes

An attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality.

Worry and reasoning are two of Satan's most successful tools. He'll get us started with one negative thought and then sit back and watch us finish ourselves off.

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.

In complete darkness we are all the same, it is only our knowledge and wisdom that separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.

In my business, my job is to make people believe they are seeing something they're not seeing.

You know what 'FEAR' stands for? It stands for 'False Evidence Appearing Real.' It's the darkroom where Satan develops his negatives.

Light seeking light doth light of light beguile: So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

I suppose [...] that the most convincing way to fool an enemy would be to fool a friend.

Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality.

If you're injecting fear into other people, then you're trying to kill their minds. You're trying to get them to stop thinking.

But a myth, to speak plainly, to me is like a menu in a fancy French restaurant: glamorous, complicated camouflage for a fact you wouldn't otherwise swallow, like maybe lima beans.

Lose no time to contradict her, Nor endeavor to convict her; Only take this rule along, Always to advise her wrong, And reprove her when she's right; She may then grow wise for spite.

My dear brothers, never forget, when you hear the progress of enlightenment vaunted, that the devil's best trick is to persuade you that he doesn't exist!

People who wish to numb our caution in dealing with them by means of flattery are employing a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping draught, which, if it does not put us to sleep, keeps us all the more awake.

The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us; but he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. His attack is psychological, Damien. And powerful.

Darkness is only in the mortal eye, that thinks it sees, but sees not.

Even the brightest magnesium flare can do little against such dark except blind the eyes of the one holding it. Thus one craves what by seeing one has in fact not seen.

The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free.

The bullshitter is neither on the side of the true or the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

The secret of being a top-notch con man is being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he's getting it.

I hate giving away tricks, you have to create an impression and not an image. You want audiences to look at certain places and not look at other places. And when you've got the help of modern-day abilities with technology, it's a much more natural look.

Fly away, pretty moth, to the shade Of the leaf where you slumbered all day; Be content with the moon and the stars, pretty moth, And make use of your wings while you may. . . . . But tho' dreams of delight may have dazzled you quite, They at last found it dangerous play; Many things in this world that look bright, pretty moth, Only dazzle to lead us astray.

Many truths which are not believed are called lies,' the Laughing Beast said. 'Mirrors do not themselves lie unless they have been enchanted. Ordinary mirrors merely reflect what is revealed to them. People lie and mirrors reflect people. If your mother feared mirrors in your land, she feared herself.

All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.