Thomas Merton
author profile
born
January 31, 1915
died
December 10, 1968
gender
male
place of birth
Prades, France
genre
Religion & Spirituality, Nonfiction
influences
Gerard Manley Hopkins
about this author
Thomas Merton was one of the most influential Catholic authors of the 20th century. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani, in the American state of Kentucky, Merton was an acclaimed Catholic spiritual writer, poet, author and social activist. Merton wrote over 60 books, scores of essays and reviews, and is the ongoing subject of many biographies. Merton was also a proponent of inter-religious dialogue, engaging in spiritual dialogues with the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh and D. T. Suzuki. His life and career were suddenly cut short at age 53, when he was electrocuted stepping out of his bath.
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avg rating: 4.12
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The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.06 — 923 ratings — published 1948 21 editions |
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New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.28 — 360 ratings — published 1972 5 editions |
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No Man Is an Island by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.16 — 301 ratings — published 1983 10 editions |
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Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.17 — 241 ratings — published 1956 9 editions |
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The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.27 — 129 ratings — published 1969 8 editions |
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The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.10 — 126 ratings — published 1970 7 editions |
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Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.22 — 109 ratings — published 1971 2 editions |
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Zen and the Birds of Appetite. by Thomas Merton avg rating 3.93 — 107 ratings — published 1968 2 editions |
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Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.17 — 83 ratings — published 1968 4 editions |
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Dialogues with Silence: Prayers & Drawings by Thomas Merton avg rating 4.30 — 76 ratings — published 2002 2 editions |
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"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves and not to twist them to fit our own image."
— Thomas Merton
— Thomas Merton
"If you want to identify me,ask me not where I live,or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail,ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for."
— Thomas Merton
— Thomas Merton
"Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything."
— Thomas Merton
— Thomas Merton
topics mentioning this author
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| The Rory Gilmore ...: Eat, Pray, Love | 61 | 142 | Sep 26, 2008 09:08PM | |
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