At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our life, which is inaccessable to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us.

Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness.

To worship our false selves is to worship nothing. And the worship of nothing is hell.

It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives.

The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty. Ghandi, quoted in Merton, p. 68

Today will never come again.

People have no idea what one saint can do: for sanctity is stronger than the whole of hell.