Managing Monday with Thomas Merton – Take 2

Last week we reflected upon a few Thomas Merton quotes – and here are some more. Merton (1915-1968) was a Trappist monk and mystic. For a brief period he was a Communist. He is largely remembered for his work as a civil rights activist, poet, writer and student of comparative religion.

• When ambition ends, happiness begins – Thomas Merton
• The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that 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 – Thomas Merton
• A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire – Thomas Merton
• If we strive to be happy by filling the silence of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing,  we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth. If we have no silence, God is not heard in our music. If we have no rest, God does not bless our work. If we twist our lives out of shape in order to fill every corner of them with action and experience, God will seem silently to withdraw from our hearts and leave us empty – Thomas Merton
• A man knows he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live, and begins to live – Thomas Merton