Top 500 Thomas Merton Quotes (2023 Update)

1. “Pride makes us artificial; humility makes us real.”

— Thomas Merton

2. “Perhaps I am stronger than I think.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Confidence Quotes, Being Strong Quotes

3. “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Valentine's Day Quotes, Fate Quotes

4. “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.”

— Thomas Merton

5. “If a man is to live, he must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.”

— Thomas Merton

6. “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy.”

— Thomas Merton

7. “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

— Thomas Merton

8. “To be grateful is to recognize the love of God in everything.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Gratitude Quotes

9. “Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.”

— Thomas Merton

10. “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.”

— Thomas Merton

11. “Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”

— Thomas Merton

12. “The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.”

— Thomas Merton

13. “A humble man is not afraid of failure. In fact, he is not afraid of anything, even himself, since perfect humility implies perfect confidence in the power of God.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Humility Quotes, Humble Quotes

14. “To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.”

— Thomas Merton

15. “A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.”

— Thomas Merton

16. “If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for.”

— Thomas Merton

17. “Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.”

— Thomas Merton

18. “Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Compassion Quotes

19. “In Silence God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience.”

— Thomas Merton

20. “People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.”

— Thomas Merton

21. “The speech of God is silence. His Word is solitude.”

— Thomas Merton

22. “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”

— Thomas Merton

23. “Our real journey in life is interior; It is a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. Never was it more necessary to respond to that action.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Real Quotes

24. “The sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.”

— Thomas Merton

25. “When you see God in everyone, then they see God in you.”

— Thomas Merton

26. “The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds”

— Thomas Merton

27. “Today will never come again.”

— Thomas Merton

28. “Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s love; every moment of existence is a grace.”

— Thomas Merton

29. “There is in all visible things – a hidden wholeness.”

— Thomas Merton

30. “Souls are like athletes, that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers, and rewarded according to their capacity.”

— Thomas Merton

31. “Action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring.”

— Thomas Merton

32. “The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.”

— Thomas Merton

33. “We are not at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.”

— Thomas Merton

34. “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

— Thomas Merton

35. “The meaning of life is found in openness to being and “being present” in full awareness.”

— Thomas Merton

36. “Humility is the surest sign of strength.”

— Thomas Merton

37. “When ambition ends, happiness begins.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Ambition Quotes

38. “For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”

— Thomas Merton

39. “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”

— Thomas Merton

40. “Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things.”

— Thomas Merton

41. “In a world of noise, confusion and conflict it is necessary that there be places of silence, inner discipline and peace. In such places love can blossom.”

— Thomas Merton

42. “If we are to love sincerely, and with simplicity, we must first of all overcome the fear of not being loved.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Firsts Quotes, Simplicity Quotes

43. “Life is this simple: we are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and the divine is shining through it all the time. This is not just a nice story or a fable, it is true.”

— Thomas Merton

44. “To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times.”

— Thomas Merton

45. “For me to be a saint means to be myself.”

— Thomas Merton

46. “Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Valentine's Day Quotes

47. “I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude-to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to be lost in the secret of His Face.”

— Thomas Merton

48. “Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.”

— Thomas Merton

49. “The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can have one without the other. It is best to have both.”

— Thomas Merton

Featured in: Quotes About Acting

50. “May we all grow in grace and peace and not neglect the silence that is printed in the center of our being. It will not fail us.”

— Thomas Merton