Thomas Merton Quotes

In the absence of a great dream, pettiness prevails.

I don't have a mission. I don't have a torch to burn.

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.

Pettiness is the tendency of people without large purposes.

According to my observations, mankind are among the most easily tamable and domesticable of all creatures in the animal world. They are readily reducible to submission, so readily conditionable (to coin a word) as to exhibit an almost incredibly enduring patience under restraint and oppression of the most flagrant character. So far are they from displaying any overweening love of freedom that they show a singular contentment with a condition of servitorship, often showing a curious canine pride in it, and again often simply unaware that they are existing in that condition.

Humans were free before the word freedom became necessary.

Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity...are motivated more by the fear of being left behind.

You don't have to settle. It's a choice you get to make every day.

If you haven't got eyes, you shouldn't have wings

Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we...yes, I assure you...we should be begging to be under control again at once.

I think the idea of freedom or liberty is really misused for political reasons, but it's something that resonates with people to the core. People want to be masters of their own destinies, but at the same time, I think they do so selectively. Sometimes they want to be told exactly what to do so they don't have to think for themselves - as long as they can still exercise their free will.

Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.

Worse than blind leaders of the blind are bland leaders of the bland.

Maybe we all just want to feel special, even for a little while, to be fooled for a bit into feeling something besides the truth of our own ordinariness.

If I had a choice, if I had understood earlier that the reason my days were all the same was because I wanted them like that, perhaps.

I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the respectability, the petty unselfishness.

Any system which allows men to choose their own future will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a Reality the stars are out of reach.

What I will no longer accept is the mediocre life of a modest little gentleman.

Ordinary society is like a paperweight on you: it won't allow you to fly.

I think that the people who are the loudest about wanting to change you are the people with the least amount of vision and creativity.

Only the tiniest fracton of mankind want freedom. All the rest want someone to tell them theyare free.

It is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it.

We fail, not because of big problems, but because of small purposes.

The only glory most of us have to hope for is the glory of being normal.

I never imagine myself as anything. I've never had a goal or any future vision at all. I just do what's in front of me.