Monastery Quotes

“My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk”
― John Keats

“Now you are walking in Paris all alone in the crowd

As herds of bellowing buses drive by

Love's anguish tightens your throat

As if you were never to be loved again

If you lived in the old days you would enter a monastery

You are ashamed when you discover yourself reciting a prayer

You make fun of yourself and like the fire of Hell your laughter crackles

The sparks of your laugh gild the depths of your life

It's a painting hanging in a dark museum

And sometimes you go and look at it close up”
― Guillaume Apollinaire, Zone

“If I were to ask about my seven months at the Abbey, "Did it work, did I solve my problems?" the simple answer would be, "It did not work, it did not solve my problems." And I know that a year, two years, or even a lifetime as a Trappist monk would not have "worked" either. Because a monastery is not built to solve problems but to praise the Lord in the midst of them.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“Living in a monastery, even as a guest rather than a monk, you have more opportunities than you might have elsewhere to see the world as it is, instead of through the shadow that you cast upon it.”
― Dean Koontz, Brother Odd

“He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands,”
― Ellis Peters

“Creation is always an act of affirmation, a lust for life or activity, a restlessness accompanied by art. That art is what pleases and invigorates and mystifies me.”
― Jean Moreau, Abbey of Kervennec, France

“The coming decades are likely to challenge much of what we think we know about what progress is, and about who we are in relation to the rest of nature. Can you think, or act, like the librarian of a monastery through the Dark Ages, guarding the old books as empires rise and fall outside?”
― Paul Kingsnorth, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays

“Freedom of will is our birthright.”
― Jean Moreau, Abbey of Kervennec, France

“I had no idea what they sang. I guessed it was all in Latin, but some words could have been French. I didn't need to understand the words to have them touch me. I don't know whether it was the acoustics, the song, the beauty of the singing or the conviction behind it, but there was grandeur and hope in every note.

The frescos flickered in candlelight and stained-glass men looked down upon me benevolently as the monks' singing brought pieces of me apart. Maybe this was why I had come, why I was meant to be here. I saw tears running down Fabiana's cheeks.

Brother Rocher asked in French and English for those wishing to be blessed to come forward. I sat and watched the three Brazilians and half a dozen others move forward in turn. There was a final chant and everyone filed out. Except me.

Centuries of singing, service to others and dedication to something bigger than twenty-first-century materialism had created a peace that permeated the walls. Whatever issues I had with religion were not relevant here. The stillness and austerity gave me a strange sense of comfort, and I seemed to be moving toward some sort of clarity.”
― Graeme Simsion, Two Steps Forward

“I asked him what it was like to live in a monastery and meditate for a year. He said it was a waste of time, that he never meditated, and that the older monks were interested only in feeling up boys, playing cards, and telling fortunes, that they were a dirty, lazy, superstitious lot.”
― Edmund White, The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading

“If you are forgetful of the Lord, you will not pray, and without prayer the soul will not dwell in the love of God, for the grace of the Holy Spirit comes through prayer.”
― Elizabeth P. Fitzgerald, A Year in the Holy Spirit with Saint Silouan the Athonite: - A Calendar of Daily Quotes

“The prior turned back to Walter.
“And thou, my child, must heed these
good brothers, who dost seek the
good of thy soul, to grow in thee the
gentle spirit of the monk. And thou
dost desire to be a worthy monk, dost
thou not?”

Walter bit his lip and was silent.

“Walter, answer thou the father
prior,” urged Bartholomew, alarmed
by this diffidence. “Thou dost desire
to be a worthy monk, I trow?”

“No, Father,” whispered the boy.

Brother Bartholomew crossed himself in horror. The prior’s face was a
curious mix of sternness and concealed mirth.

“Then what – wouldst be an unworthy monk?” he asked seriously.

“No, Father – a…a knight!”
― Sarah Brazytis, In God is My Hope

“Monastery you can't retire it's forever, there isn't music, films, parties and other crazy stuff. It's about spiritual life... It becomes harder and harder!”
― Deyth Banger

“The Offices rerooted me in a tradition where, monk or not, I would always be at home. From long ago I knew the power of their repetition, the incantatory force of the Psalms. But they had an added power now. As a kid, the psalmist (or psalmists) had seemed remote to me, the Psalms long prayers which sometimes rose to great poetry but often had simply to be endured. For a middle-aged man, the psalmists' moods and feelings came alive. One of the voices sounded a lot like a modern New Yorker, me or people I knew: a manic-depressive type A personality sometimes up, more often down, sometimes resigned, more often pissed off, railing about his sneaky enemies and feckless friends, always bitching to the Lord about the rotten hand he'd been dealt. That good old changelessness.”
― Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

“But does contemptus mean 'contempt,' dear? Of course not. That would imply arrogance, superiority, pride. So much that we call worldly is actually just flawed or being seen through a cracked lens. Imperfect or imperfectly understood. Who are we to judge as contemptible a thing or person whose existence God sustains? Everything, however imperfect, has its purpose.

No, Tony dear, contemptus mundi means 'detachment from the world,' seeing the world sub specie aeternitatis. Enduring or celebrating it, but never forgetting—even when it seems perfect and forever—that as the Bible says: 'all this shall pass like grass before the wind.”
― Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul

“You have two things of value: your monastery and your people. Translate the book for me, and I'll let you keep one. Which will it be?”
― Faith Erin Hicks, The Stone Heart

“Mankind does not need monasteries to live, but monasteries need mankind to live!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Where there is love, a person can bear everything - sorrows and worries, temptations and thoughts, even various tragic events like wars, earthquakes, disasters, etc. This is how much grace helps him.”
― Gerondissa Makrina Vassopoulou, Words of the Heart

“Living based in security is a monastery.”
― Tamerlan Kuzgov

“The monastery, like any large social organization, attracts a whole range of individuals, with varying interests and skills, all of whom have to be put to use in the service of the religion. The Buddhist monastic life must be wide enough in scope to be able to accommodate these various types and make them productive members of a religious community.”
― Robert E. Buswell Jr., The Zen Monastic Experience

“The peaceful life of the monastery, where true brotherhood was possible, was a small oasis in the midst of the suffering of war.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, My Master's Robe: Memories of a Novice Monk

“When I was at Eiheiji monastery in Japan, everyone was just doing what he should do. That is all. It is the same as waking up in the morning; we have to get up. At Eiheiji monastery, when we had to sit, we sat; when we had to bow to Buddha, we bowed to Buddha. That is all. And when we were practicing, we did not feel anything special. We did not even feel that we were leading a monastic life. For us, the monastic life was the usual life, and the people who came from the city were unusual people. When we saw them we felt, "Oh, some unusual people have come!"

But once I had left Eiheiji and been away for some time, coming back was different. I heard the various sounds of practice—the bells and the monks reciting the sutra—and I had a deep feeling. There were tears flowing out of my eyes, nose, and mouth! It is the people who are outside of the monastery who feel its atmosphere. Those who are practicing actually do not feel anything. I think this is true for everything.”
― Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

“Women like Hild chose to join monasteries, rising to positions of great power as abbesses, gaining wisdom and influencing decision-making within the newly emerging church. They had a choice and they embraced lives that brought them in touch with the Christian continent, with new ideas, beautiful art and architecture, and a world of stories, saints and sinners that would change the ideological landscape of Britain long-term. Not until the last decades have women been able to assume such roles within the modern church, but for a short time in the seventh century they were the movers and shakers. [...]”
― Janina Ramírez, Femina