The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smal…

Thomas Merton
439 citations
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. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most. ✨ Thomas Merton (1998). The Seven Storey Mountain, p.116, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Death
22

More Author Quotes

Today will never come again.
Grace is not a strange, magic substance which is subtly filtered into our souls to act as a kind of spiritual penicillin. Grace is unity, oneness within ourselves, oneness with God. ✨ Thomas Merton ( … ▶
I suppose what makes me most glad is that we all recognize each other in this metaphysical space of silence and happening, and get some sense, for a moment, that we are full of paradise without knowi … ▶
For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk, because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring any other man on this earth into the cloud where I dwell in Your light, that is, Your darkn … ▶
Teach me to take all grace / And spring it into blades of act, / Grow spears and sheaves of charity, / While each new instant, (new eternity) / Flowering with clean and individual circumstance, / Spe … ▶

More Author Quotes

Most Cited Authors

The Best Quotes

Most Liked Authors

Curated Author Quotes