A friend emailed this to me yesterday. I love it, and thought I’d share:
The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice, but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility. And if the sheer force of his own self-confidence communicates itself to other people and gives them the impression that he really is a saint, such a man can wreck a whole city or a religious order or even a nation. The world is covered with scars that have been left in its flesh by visionaries like these.
~Thomas Merton
Thanks, Kristy.










5 Comments
beautiful Merton quote!
Hmm – I hate to demean this quote by comparing it to Hollywood press, but there’s been an individual in the news lately that seems to exemplify this fatal flaw. I believe he’s the “half” man in “Two and a Half Men”. Thanks for the quote.
Insightful.
You’re welcome!
Funny to turn upside down and apply to Charlie sheen. it’s true. It’s what he’s doing! Ha