Top 248 Quotes & Sayings by Meister Eckhart

If God gave the soul his whole creation she would not be filled thereby but only with himself.

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

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

When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order.

All God wants of man is a peaceful heart.

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

We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all eternity... But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me.

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.

A just person is one who is conformed and transformed into justice.

The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge.

The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.

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

The more we have the less we own.

A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.

Words derive their power from the original word.

There exists only the present instant... a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Every creature is a word of God.

What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.

The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great.

One person who has mastered life is better than a thousand persons who have mastered only the contents of books, but no one can get anything out of life without God.

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

Man goes far away or near but God never goes far-off; he is always standing close at hand, and even if he cannot stay within he goes no further than the door.

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

Love will never be anywhere except where equality and unity are..... And there can be no love where love does not find equality or is not busy creating equality. Nor is there any pleasure without equality. Practice equality in human society. Learn to love, esteem, consider all people like yourself. What happens to another, be it bad or good, pain or joy, ought to be as if it happened to you.

The soul does not grow by addition but by subtraction.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Between God and Me there is no 'Between'.

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.

Nobody at any time is cut off from God.

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.

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

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

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.

It is in the darkness that one finds the light.

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.

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.

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

To the extent that you eliminate ego from your activities, God comes into them - but no more and no less. Begin with that, and let it cost you your uttermost. In this way, and no other, is true peace to be found.

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.

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.

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

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.

Stillness is where creativity and solutions are found.

Compassion is where peace and justice kiss

The soul is created in a place between Time and Eternity: with its highest powers it touches Eternity, with its lower Time.

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.

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

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'.