Thomas Merton Quotes

We have peace with God as soon as we believe, but not always with ourselves. The pardon may be past the prince's hand and seal, and yet not put into the prisoner's hand.

In my opinion, if we have not achieved peace, it is because people forget its most fundamental aspect. Before we talk about peace among nations, we must settle our peace with God.

I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.

The world will be at war as long as the mind is at war with itself. If we can't find peace within ourselves, where is the hope for peace in the world?

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

Little by little he came to recognize the difference between the spirits that agitated him, one from the enemy and one from God.

Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God.

You can either be a host to God, or a hostage to your ego. It's your call.

I believe change should come from the real leader, who can make a real peace, and his name is God.

Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved; there can be no world peace unless there is soul peace. World wars are only projections of the conflicts waged inside the souls of men and women, for nothing happens in the external world that has not first happened within a soul.

If we're interested in spiritual things, we gradually realize that what we really need is to understand this nature that seems to be a bottomless basket, because there is no peace in it.

Listen to the inner light; it will guide you. Listen to inner peace; it will feed you. Listen to inner love; it will transform you, it will divinise you, it will immortalise you.

A healthy soul is whole and integrated. It is connected to God. A person with a healthy soul is at peace with God, with himself, and with other people.

Give yourself entirely to God, enter and hide in the hidden ground of your soul.

I do believe in God. But you won't find me visiting temples every now and then. I believe in self-realization. Peace of mind matters a lot to me. What's the point in doing something just for the sake of it? I'd rather do something I like doing as long as I'm being true to myself.

And I've come to the place where I believe that there's no way to solve these problems, these issues - there's nothing that we can do that will solve the problems that we have and keep the peace, unless we solve it through God, unless we solve it in being our highest self. And that's a pretty tall order.

My different personalities leave me in peace now.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

A man will treat a woman almost exactly the way he treats his own interior feminine. In fact, he hasn't the ability to see a woman, objectively speaking, until he has made some kind of peace with his interior woman.

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.

Money can come and go, and fame comes and goes. Peace of mind and a relationship with God is far more important, so this is the precedent that we've set in our lives. The bottom line is, we all die, so Jesus is the answer.

God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul.

By turning your eyes on God in meditation, your whole soul will be filled with God. Begin all your prayers in the presence of God.

One of the values of centering prayer is that you are not thinking about God during the time of centering prayer so you are giving God a chance to manifest. In centering prayer there are moments of peace that give the psyche a chance to realize that God may not be so bad after all. God has a chance to be himself for a change.

Religion brings to man an inner strength, spiritual light, and ineffable peace.