Thomas Merton

"To understand prayer, one must understand the relationship between prayer and love."

"The heart is always twenty years older than the head."

"We are not called to be religious but to be alive in the fullest sense."

"War is the fruit of failure in love."

"The function of freedom is to free someone else."

"We must learn to stand back and let life teach us."

"The greatest freedom is freedom from the opinions of others."

"Love demands a sacrifice of self but that sacrifice liberates."

"Every person is a new world composed of yet unknown and unknowable elements."

"The struggle against the true enemy is not really a struggle at all but a surrender."

"In the midst of great joy, do not forget inevitability of sorrow."

"The answer to the deepest human needs is found in contemplation not action."

"Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived."

"We need to learn the difference between the actual self and the false self we present."

"The purpose of life is not happiness but the deepening of love."

"Impatience is a form of despair."

"Beauty witnesses to transcendence in the midst of ordinary things."

"The spiritual life is not a life before, above, or after the physical life."

"We must learn to accept ourselves as God has created us."

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that people can change their lives by changing their minds."

"True love is something much deeper than mere human affection."

"We live in a world where silence is regarded as a hostile act."

"Strength comes not from the absence of fear but from the transformation of fear."

"History shows us that violence only breeds more violence."

"The world is flooded with grace and we walk through it without seeing it."

"Art is the response to the demand for entertainment to the demand for entertainment which is made by the needs of the human heart."

"Time is not something we have, but something we are."

"The contemplative life is always at odds with the active life, yet they must somehow be reconciled."

"We seek happiness when we should be seeking meaning."

"Death is not something that happens to us but something that we participate in creating."