Quotes: Thomas Merton

"We cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great." 

–– Thomas Merton (1915-1968), American Trappist monk, writer, scholar, and social activist 

via: Commonplace Book 2013-2014, 2014, p. 166.

Quotes 278: Thomas Merton

"... one cannot truly know hope unless he [or she] has found out how like despair hope is."

–– Thomas Merton (1915-1968), American Trappist monk, writer, scholar, and social activist 

via Sketchbook 4, 2008, p. 143

Quotes 238: Thomas Merton

"To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of our times." 

–– Thomas Merton (1915-1968), American Trappist monk, writer, scholar, and social activist

via Sketchbook #26, p. 44