| Author Quoted | Harold John Blackham |
| Title Quoted | Six Existential Thinkers |
| Date (Year/Month/Day) | 1964/01/11 |
| Imprint | London : Routledge. 1952I |
| Quotation | Blackham, writing of Sartre, says wisely that "popular wisdom" easily accepts extreme views but not disturbing ones. The extreme view that to live well is impossible, and the other extreme, that to live well is easy: this they will accept. But Sartre's claim that to live well is difficult and possible they reject as despair. Sartre's courage is laudable, his stoicism is insufficient. His seriousness is the kind that makes possible the conflict and contact described by Bultmann. In hoc laudo. [Praise for this.] But his dogmatic humanism has no point except as a useful illusion. |
| Journal | Dancing in the Water of Life: Seeking Peace in the Hermitage. The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 5, 1963-1965.; Edited by Robert E. Daggy. / San Francisco : Harper Collins. 1997, p. 60 |
| Link to Merton's Copy |
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