Thomas Merton

"Solitude is not found so much in physical distance as in spiritual detachment."

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of causes and concerns, to surrender oneself to too many projects is to fall into servitude."

"True prayer is an act of love, not a formula."

"Life is to be lived, not merely endured."

"The more you have, the more you are occupied. The less you have, the more free you are."

"We are dying from civilisation—we should all go back to the land and grow vegetables."

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time."

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes."

"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony."

"When we are not in love, we are not fully alive."

"Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul."

"The purpose of prayer is not to make demands upon God, but to change our own desires."

"We must be reborn, starting from the ground up, with Christ."

"Conscience is the sanctuary of liberty."

"Despair is the refusal to see that our failures are not the measure of our worth."

"A real journey is not measured by the distance we travel but by the awakening we experience."

"We must laugh at ourselves before anyone else does."

"The truth that many people never understand until it is too late is that the more you own, the more it owns you."

"Do not be too quick to assume that a man's spirituality can be gauged by his ability to speak about spiritual matters."

"Life is this simple: do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

"The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me."

"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, we feel every thing that affects them."

"The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves."

"In the end, it is the grace of God alone that saves us."

"Peace is not found in a violent world, but in the depths of a contented heart."

"Technology is not evil—only our choices about how to use it are."

"The monk does not seek his own will but the will of God."

"To study history is to study ourselves."

"Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone."

"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 think I am living for."