"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 Religion See all quotes by Thomas Merton →

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“A Book of Hours by Thomas Merton”

“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 if anything can.”

“By my monastic life and vows I am saying No to all the concentration camps, the aerial bombardments, the staged political trials, the judicial murders, the racial injustices, the economic tyrannies, and the whole socio-economic apparatus which seems geared for nothing but global destruction in spite of all its fair words in favor of peace.”

“Hope of attaining true freedom by purely political means has become an insane delusion. .”

“The Thomas Merton we knew" by Jim Knight”

“Thomas Merton Monk and Poet”

Resonant Thoughts

"There is a common response from people when they hear that in the absence of evidence to convince me otherwise I don’t have any particular belief in ghosts, psychic powers or an afterlife. It normally…"

— Derren Brown

Psychology1971

#life

"...to the priestly class — decadence is no more than a means to an end. Men of this sort have a vital interest in making mankind sick, and in confusing the values of "good" and "bad," "true" and "fals…"

— Friedrich Nietzsche

Philosophy1844–1900

#life

"I am reborn when I say a * “thou”."

— Aldo Capitini

Philosophy1899–1968

#life

"How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life …"

— Julian Barnes

Literature1946

#life