Thomas Merton Quotes

I would not be happy if I had not become a monk.

He was somebody who made me think, I suppose, about the contemplative life. I've always been a city fellow, but I've often had vague thoughts about 'checking out' and perhaps going into a monastery and just seeing what it was like.

When I became a novice monk, I lived in a temple where the atmosphere was quite like in a family. The abbot is like a father and other monks are like your big brothers, your small, younger brothers. It is a kind of family.

Household life is crowded and dusty; life gone forth is wide open... Suppose I shave off my hair and beard, put on the ochre robe, and go forth from the home life into homelessness.

I think they [ monastic folks ] were going to the desert to build a new society and in a sense to build a new world, a new culture together where it was easier to be good and holy.

What will you do now?' I think I will become a monk and devote my entire life to prayer and good works.' No,' said Rek. 'I mean, what will you do today?' Ah! Today I'll get drunk and go whoring,' said Bowman.

If you imagine that once you have accomplished your ambitions you will have time to turn to the Way, you will discover that your ambitions never come to an end.

[The monks'] minds were inaccessible to reason or mercy . . .

A monk should surely love his books with humility, wishing their good and not the glory of his own curiosity; but what the temptation of adultery is for laymen and the yearning for riches is for secular ecclesiastics, the seduction of knowledge is for monks.

Most of the utopian community ideas actually are religious. They're based more on the idea of the monastery than the commune.

Succesful people are all dreamers. A dream becomes an idea and then something concrete. I think it all starts with a dream.

If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them.

Hey, I always say: if you want a quiet life, become a monk.

The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God.

I think the first and most important thing is that you've got to have a goal and a vision.

Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.

That we should establish ourselves in a sense of GOD’s Presence, by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation, to think of trifles and fooleries.

Dream big but think small.

No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own . . . and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing . . . is one that they can't or won't entertain.

Am I the woman I think I am, the woman I want to be? More importantly, am I the woman the Savior needs me to be?

Meditation is the activity of calling to mind, and thinking over, and dwelling on, and applying to oneself, the various things that one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God.

My original idea- and I still want to do it -for Pinko Records, would be to create a platform for other artists to do the same thing I did. They could create their own levels of donation and final goal. I have no idea how I would make any money on that -but I don't think like that.

I don't think I've ever had a plan or direction for myself. I've actually made decisions based more on what I didn't want to do than what I wanted to do.

Dr. King used to say, 'I was sitting in the back of the bus, but my mind was always up front.' Don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it. You aim high and you work very hard and now I think it's clear that you can be anything you want to.