"When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children." ~ Thomas Merton
An act without purpose lacks something of the perfection of freedom, because freedom is more than a matter of aimless choice.
The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little. ~ Seven Storey Mountain
Stop thinking and start looking. ~ Zen and the Birds of Appetite
We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves. ~ No Man Is an Island
We have what we seek. It is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.
There is in all visible things… a hidden wholeness.
The only way to make a man worthy of love is by loving him.
The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men!
Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.
Silence is the strength of our interior life... if we fill our lives with silence, then we will live in hope.
Perhaps there is nothing to figure out after all: perhaps we only need to wake up.
Music and art and poetry attune the soul to God.
You can tell more about a monk by the way he uses his broom than by anything he says.
Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.