Quotes about Struggle
The light of truth burns without a flicker in the depths of a house that is shaken with storms of passion and fear.
— Thomas Merton
Prayer and love are learned in the hour when prayer becomes impossible and the heart has turned to stone.
— Thomas Merton
Laziness and cowardice are two of the greatest enemies of the spiritual life.
— Thomas Merton
Nu putem fi în relaÈ›ii de pace cu alÃ…£ii pentru c? nu suntem în relaÃ…£ii de pace cu noi înÅŸine, ÅŸi nu putem fi în relaÃ…£ii de pace cu noi înÅŸine pentru c? nu avem pace cu Dumnezeu.
— Thomas Merton
This, then, is our desert: to live facing despair, but not to consent. To trample it down under hope in the Cross. To wage war against despair unceasingly.
— Thomas Merton
The truth that many people never understand is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more your suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things start to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.
— Thomas Merton
You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again, Solitude, solitude. And You have turned around and thrown the world in my lap. You have told me, Leave all things and follow me, and then You have tied half of New York to my foot like a ball and chain. You have got me kneeling behind that pillar with my mind making a noise like a bank. Is that contemplation?
— Thomas Merton
As a matter of fact, it is often harder to manifest the good that is in us than the evil.
— Thomas Merton
The deepest need of our darkness is to comprehend the light which shines in the midst of it.
— Thomas Merton
A theology of love cannot be allowed merely to serve the interests of the rich and powerful, justifying their wars, their violence and their bombs, while exhorting the poor and underprivileged to practice patience, meekness, long-suffering and to solve their problems, if at all, nonviolently.
— Thomas Merton
It was in this year, too, that the hard crust of my dry soul finally squeezed out all the last traces of religion that had ever been in it. There was no room for any God in that empty temple full of dust and rubbish which I was now so jealously to guard against all intruders, in order to devote it to the worship of my own stupid will.
— Thomas Merton
This, then, is our desert: to live facing despair, but not to consent. To trample it down under hope in the Cross. To wage war against despair unceasingly. That war is our wilderness.
— Thomas Merton