Thomas Merton Quotes

I have no issues with my identity.

Every goal, every action, every thought, every feeling one experiences, whether it be consciously or unconsciously known, is an attempt to increase one's level of peace of mind.

I find peace anywhere I go. It depends on what is within the walls of my own home.

Happiness is inward, and not outward; and so, it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.

In deep self acceptance, grows a compassionate understanding.

Meditation practice is a way of making friends with ourselves. Whether we are worthy or unworthy, that's not the point. It's developing a friendly attitude to ourselves, accepting the hidden neurosis coming through.

It came to me…that I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment, that what I was feeling at that moment justified all I had been through, because all I had been through was my being there. I was experiencing…a new self-acceptance, a sense that I had to be this mind and this body, its vices and its virtues, and that I had no other chance or choice.

Whatever you accept completely will take you to peace, including the acceptance that you cannot accept, that you are in resistance.

When you do not require a person to show up as you imagine you need them to be, then you can drop expectation. Then you love them exactly as they are. Yet this can only happen when you love your Self exactly as you are

Love your self's self where it lives.

Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it.

Happiness is not to be sought in solitude or in busy centers. It is in the Self.

Before enlightenment, I used to be depressed; after enlightenment, I continue to be depressed.

I was really involved with other people's opinions of me, and it got heightened during my film career. I don't have any opinion, good or bad about it, it just was. It's not the way I feel now, and I think yoga has a lot to do with that.

The mantra that you're given in Transcendental Meditation you keep to yourself. The reason being, true happiness is not out there, true happiness lies within.

Sometimes it seems like we're closer to our manicurists than we are our own souls. We have to find ways to get in touch with that and to listen to it and to hear it.

I don't really believe in regret or mistakes. I try to take everything as it is, be comfortable with myself.

Most people think that to meditate, I should feel a particular special something, and if I don't, then I must be doing something wrong.

You learn to accept your own reality.

The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.

Happiness is just a positive perception from our brain. Some days, you will be unhappy. Our brain is a tool we use. It's not who we are.

Have you ever noticed when you look in a mirror, unless you're really depressed or something, the person in the mirror generally looks a little more competent, a little more curious, a little more intelligent than you actually feel yourself to be? They often look more interesting and more soulful.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

My mission in life is to try and get to a point where my insides world is not affected by the outside world.

As you think, you travel, and as you love, you attract. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.