Meister Eckhart Quotes

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

The most important hour is always the present. The most significant person is precisely the one sitting across from you right now. The most necessary work is always love.

It is in the darkness that one finds the light.

The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.

What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.

Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.

Above all else, know this: Be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ones. For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive

For the person who has learned to let go and let be, nothing can ever get in the way again.

The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life: your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away, but they're not punishing you, they're freeing your soul. If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. If you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels freeing you from the earth.

There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence can begin to teach us the language of heaven.

Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.

The more deeply we are our true selves, the less self is in us.

If you love yourself, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as you love another person less than you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself but if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one person and that person is both God and man.

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.

The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.

Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.

There exists only the present instant ... There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now.

And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.

Become aware of what is in you. Announce it, pronounce it, produce it, and give birth to it.

The very best and highest attainment in this life is to remain still and let God act and speak in you.

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.

Compassion is where peace and justice kiss

What does God do all day long? He gives birth. From the beginning of eternity, God lies on a maternity bed giving birth to all. God is creating this whole universe full and entire in this present moment.

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.

Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure.

Treat all things as if they were loaned to you without any ownership - whether body or soul, sense or strength, external goods or honors, house or hall . . . everything.

If we seek God for our own good and profit, we are not seeking God.

God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.

Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God.

People should not worry so much about what they do but rather about what they are.

He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment.

The very best and noblest attainment in this life is to be silent and let God work and speak within. Therefore it is said: 'In the midst of silence the secret word was spoken to me'.

Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time: and not only time but temporalities, not only temporal things but temporal affections, not only temporal affections but the very taint and smell of time.

To be full of things is to be empty of God; to be empty of things is to be full of God.

The soul does not grow by addition but by subtraction.

Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.

Every creature is a word of God.

Jesus went into the temple and boldly drove out those that bought and sold. And when all was cleared, there was nobody left but Jesus. Observe this, for it is the same with us: when he is alone he is able to speak in the temple of the soul. If anyone else is speaking in the temple of your soul, Jesus will keep still, as if he were not at home. And he is not at home wherever there are strange guests-guests with whom the soul holds conversation, guests who are seeking to bargain. If Jesus is to speak and be heard, the soul must be alone and quiet.

You will have peace to the extent that you have God, and the further you are away from God the less you will be at peace... Thus you may measure your progress with God by measuring your peace or the lack of it.

God cannot know himself without me.

Everything is meant to be lost, that the soul may stand in unhampered nothingness

One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works.

God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself in so far as you are a created being made and let God be God in you.

The most powerful prayer, one wellnigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is.

People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.

Between God and Me there is no 'Between'.

You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion.

Wisdom consists in doing the next think you have to do, doing it with your whole heart, and finding delight in doing it.

God is at home, it's we who have gone out for a walk.

A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware of God, or he may be in Church and be aware of God; but if he is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in all things and places, and is willing to give Himself everywhere so far as lies in Him... He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere.