Thomas Merton Quotes

All your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be in vain, if at the same time you do not build your character, and attain mastery over your thoughts and actions.

In order for good to blossom it must be cultivated and exercised by constant practice, and to be truly righteous there is required a daily pruning of the evil growth of our characters by a daily repen- tance from sin.

Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth.

To know what virtue is is not enough; we must endeavor to possess and to practice it, or in some other manner actually ourselves to become good.

As to virtue . . . it is an act of the will, a habit which increases the quantity, intensity and quality of life. It builds up, strengthens and vivifies personality.

Mercy can purge the soul of sin, making room for a fresh start. Truth is vital in order that we have an unvarying standard by which to determine what we are to be and to do and what we are to rid ourselves of. All the cardinal virtues, therefore, carry their own intrinsic as well as outward reward. A merciful man does do good to his own soul.

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.

Every complete man has his genius. True virtue is genius.

The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.

The message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is that we can and must expect to become better as long as we live.

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.

Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.

My future's about trying to be a better man.

A perfect human being: Man in search of his ideal of perfection. Nothing less.

The sciences have ever been the surest guides to virtue.

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends.

Intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.

A man's virtue is best secured by shame, and best improved by emulation in the society of virtuous men.

For the majority of mankind, religion is a habit, or, more precisely, tradition is their religion. Though it seems strange, I think that the first step to moral perfection is your liberation from the religion in which you were raised. Not a single person has come to perfection except by following this way.

Character must be kept bright as well as clean.

I'm a good man, and I'm gonna become a better man.

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.

One can acquire some virtues by feigning them for a long time.

Force yourself to be humble, until it becomes second nature. Then it will be an unconscious activity.

Let a man begin in earnest with "I ought," and he will end, by God's grace, if he persevere, with "I will." Let him force himself to abound in all small offices of kindliness, attention, affectionateness, and all these for God's sake. By and by he will feel them become the habit of his soul.