Thomas Merton Quotes

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.

Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page.

He who does not know Him, knows nothing else as it truly is.

Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself.

Faith accepts no commands. It accepts only what comes to it by way of reasoned conviction.

The birthday of Jesus

That is what the intuition is for: it is the direct messenger of the soul.

We don't understand with our brains but with our hearts. That's where the image of God is.

I feel very in tune with the spiritual world and no one understands it unless you have got that intuition.

Off to one side sits a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor, perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him-and so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.

When the eyes of the flesh are shut, the eyes of the spirit are open.

If we discount the account of creation, we remove the significance of Christmas.

Were it not for the shepherds, there would have been no reception. And were it not for a group of stargazers, there would have been no gifts.

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.

God's visit to earth took place in an animal shelter with no attendants present and nowhere to lay the newborn king but a feed trough. ... For just an instant the sky grew luminous with angels, yet who saw the spectacle? Illiterate hirelings who watched the flocks of others, "nobodies" who failed to leave their names.

Faith is an organ of knowledge, and love an organ of experience.

She knew this music--knew it down to the very core of her being--but she had never heard it before. Unfamiliar, it had still always been there inside her, waiting to be woken. It grew from the core of mystery that gives a secret its special delight, religion its awe. It demanded to be accepted by simple faith, not dissected or questioned, and at the same time, it begged to be doubted and probed.

Wisdom is infused into every form.

The Promised Land was a tangible representation of God's ultimate desire for His people, but they failed to comprehend His gift for at least three reasons: It was unconditionally promised, it was outrageously generous, and it was absolutely free. None of those make sense in the world as we know it.

The greatest answer to prayer is that I am brought into a perfect understanding with God, and that alters my view of actual things.

The so-called miraculous powers of a great master are a natural accompaniment to his exact understanding of subtle laws that operate in the inner cosmos of consciousness.

The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.

[The Christmas story] is as simple as was the Man himself and His teaching. SA simple as the Sermon on the Mount which still remains as the ultimate basis ... of the belief of free men of good will everywhere.

All are seeing God always. But they do not know it.