Thomas Merton Quotes

Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.

I like a calm life where nobody bothers me.

I actually really like being in the woods.

If there is nothing you can share with other people, try to be close to Things, they will not abandon you; and the nights are still here and the winds that move through the trees and across many lands; everything in the world of Things and animals is still filled with happening, which you can take part in.

I wait. Now the night flows back, the mighty stillness embraces and includes me; I can see the stars again and the world of starlight. I am twenty miles or more from the nearest fellow human, but instead of loneliness I feel loveliness. Loveliness and a quiet exultation.

There is something about silence and being in the middle of nowhere that is really very attractive.

How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude!

I'm not trying to be ridiculous or funny, but it was rather pleasant to find yourself in isolation, in solitary.

Silence is best.

With Jackson there was quiet solitude. Just to sit and look at the landscape. An inner quietness. After dinner, to sit on the back porch and look at the light. No need for talking. For any kind of communication.

There are few places you can find silence. Air travel could be the last fortress of solitude.

In fact at home I sometimes like to be quiet and hear the sounds of the world outside.

When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing - just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?

But Portugal has a peaceful feel about it. I sit on the terrace overlooking the vineyard there and I feel cut off from the world. You need that sort of thing.

My favourite country is Finland because once you get to a certain point, you can drive for hours without seeing a single person. I love peace and quiet - something I don't get very often.

At home, I love reaching out into that absolute silence, when you can hear the owl or the wind.

When I go fishing I like to know that there's nobody within five miles of me.

There's something about the water - that solitary kind of peaceful feeling. You're on Earth but not quite.

The only place I've felt was really my home is my cabin up north. There's something in the water there that connects me to that place. There's also this sense of isolation and loneliness about it that I've never been able to shake.

It was night and I could see a large and calm lake, reflecting the moon. Black mountains rose around it. I arrived from between two of these mountains, I looked at the lake and the moon, and that was it, nothing else happened.

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.

There is something joyous about not talking.

I just love being in the middle of nowhere.

There is such a peace out in the middle of the desert. There's nothing like it.

I love the smell of rain, and I love the sound of the ocean waves.