Thomas Merton Quotes

A tension or difficulty can signal the approach of a new grace of God. But it has to be looked at wisely and humanly.

There are, O monks, these four lights. What four? The light of the moon, the light of the sun, the light of fire, and the light of wisdom. Of these four lights, the light of wisdom is supreme.

...the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.

God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.

The heart of a Christian, like the moon, commonly suffers an eclipse when it is at the full, and that by the interposition of the earth.

To see everything in God and to see God in everything normally takes a lifetime of practice.

He taught them that the purpose of a man is to make his life holy--every aspect of his life: eating, drinking praying, sleeping. God is everywhere, he told them, and if it seems at times that He is hidden from us, it is only because we have not yet learned to seek Him correctly.

The dignity of self is greatly enhanced by looking upward in the search for holiness. Like the giant trees, we should reach up for the light. The most important source of light we can come to know is the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is the source of inner strength and peace.

And this I know; whether the one True Light Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite, One flash of it within the Tavern caught Better than in the temple lost outright.

One has to do sadhana for the total manifestation of the Divine in oneself.

Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested ... That's where the Light enters you.

The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and above itself. But when the light shines in it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and seems to lose its nature in the splendor of a higher nature, the nature of the light that is in it.

I would rather a thousand times be five minutes at the feet of Christ than listen a lifetime to all the wise men in the world.

Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives.

The dark night of the soul comes just before revelation.

Were I a preacher, I should preach above all other things, the practice of the Presence of God.... Those who have the gale of the Holy Spirit go forward, even in sleep.

[Christ] does not give [men] light but from moment to moment; the instant He withdraws, all is darkness.... God does not give them a stock of holiness.

And perhaps you thought, "Because I'm doing so much spiritual work, I'm only going to attract angels." No! The more spiritual work you do, the more darkness you attract. Because the light don't need more light. The darkness needs light! The light doesn't need more light.

Conversion is not putting a man in an armchair and taking him easily to heaven. It is the beginning of a mighty conflict, in which it costs much to win the victory.

The mind is either at war with God or it is being renewed. There is no middle ground.

The most divine light only shineth on those minds which are purged from all worldly dross and human uncleanliness.

The sad thing is that many of us come to Christ because we are sinners, and then spend the rest of our lives trying to pretend that we are not!

The warrior of light plunges unhesitatingly into the river of passions always flowing through his life.

Conversion will not be a single event or something that will last for just one season of life but will be a continuing process. Life can become brighter until the perfect day, when we will see the Savior and find that we have become like Him. The Lord described the journey this way: ‘That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day’ (D&C 50:24).