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The humor, the sophistication, the literary genius, and philosophical insight of Chuang Tzu are evident to anyone who samples his work.

— Thomas Merton The Way of Chuang-Tzŭ (1965)

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Intelligence

More quotes by Thomas Merton

Chuang Tzu is not concerned with words and formulas about reality, but with the direct existential grasp of reality in itself.

The Way of Chuang-Tzŭ (1965)

This new language of prayer has to come out of something which transcends all our traditions, and comes out of the immediacy of love.

All problems are resolved and everything is clear. The rock, all matter, all life, is charged with dharmakaya… everything is emptiness and everything is compassion.

The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton (1975)

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

Everybody makes fun of virtue, which by now has, as its primary meaning, an affectation of prudery practiced by hypocrites and the impotent.

The Seven Storey Mountain (1948)

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Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.

Socrates

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël De l’Allemagne [Germany (1813)

Like every 'intellectual', a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois ideology that speaks: its resources and ruses are infinite.

Louis Althusser Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Merton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.