Meister Eckhart Quotes (57 Quotes)


    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 sure, this requires effort and love, a careful cultivation of the spiritual life, and a watchful, honest, active oversight of all one's mental attitudes towards things and people. It is not to be learned by world-flight, running away from things, turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, one must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.

    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.

    There is spirit in the soul, untouched by time and flesh, flowing from the Spirit, remaining in the Spirit, itself wholly spiritual. In this principle is God, ever verdant, ever flowering in all the joy and glory of His actual.

    To be right, a person must do one of two things either he must learn to have God in his work and hold fast to him there, or he must give up his work altogether. Since, however, we cannot live without activities that are both human and various, we must learn to keep God I everything we do, and whatever the job or place, keep on with him, letting nothing stand in our way.


    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.

    No-one knows what the soul is.. But what we do know is, the soul is where God works compassion.


    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.

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




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

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

    If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice.

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

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

    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.

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

    If you seek the kernel, then you must break the shell. An likewise, if you would know the reality of Nature, you must destroy the appearance, and the farther you go beyond the appearance, the nearer you will be to the essence.

    The more God is in all things, the more He is outside them. The more He is within, the more without.

    There is no stopping place in this life -- nor is there ever one for any man, no matter how far along his way he's gone.

    And so, too, I speak of love he who is held by it is held by the strongest of bonds, and yet the stress is pleasant. Moreover, he can sweetly bear all that happens to him. When one has found this bond, he looks for no other.

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

    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.

    If the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'thank you,' that would suffice.

    Jesus might have said, ''I became man for you. If you do not become God for me, you wrong me.''

    The kind of work we do does not make us holy, but we can make it holy. However 'sacred' a calling may be, as it is a calling, it has no power to sanctify but rather as we are and have the divine being within, we bless each task we do, be it eating, or sleeping, or watching, or any other.

    Therefore, if you want to discover nature's nakedness, you must destroy its symbols, and the farther you get in the nearer you come to its essense. When you come to the One that gathers all things up into itself, there your soul must stay.



    ... all blades of grass, wood, and stone, all things are One.

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


    To be properly expressed a thing must proceed from within, moved by its form.


    ... Cause in eternity there's no yesterday or tomorrow, but only Now.

    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.

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

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

    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.

    He who suffers for love does not suffer, for all suffering is forgotten.

    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.

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

    Even though I never did an evil deed, yet, if I have the will to do evil, I have the sin as if I had done the deed and I could, by a total will, do as great a sin as if I had killed the whole world, though I never actually did anything. Why, would the same not be possible to a good will Yes, indeed, and even much more so. Surely, I can do all things with the will. I can bear the sorrow of all men and feed all the poor and do the work of all men and whatever else you may think of. If it be not the will that fails you, but only the power, then truly, before God, you have done it all, and no man can take it from you or even hinder you for a moment for to will to do as soon as I can is the same before God as having done it.

    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.

    The eyes that see God are the same eyes through which God sees me.

    It is a fair trade and an equal exchange to the extent that you depart from things, thus far, no more and no less, God enters into you with all that is his, as far as you have stripped yourself of yourself in all things. It is here that you should b


    More Meister Eckhart Quotations (Based on Topics)


    God - Man - Soul - Love - Life - Work & Career - Place - Eternity - Stress - People - Contemplation - Home - Light - Sadness - World - Time - Nature - Compassion - Religions & Spirituality - View All Meister Eckhart Quotations

    Related Authors


    John Locke - Heraclitus - Bertrand Russell - Arthur Schopenhauer - Philo - Michel de Montaigne - Martin Heidegger - Baruch Spinoza - Avicenna - Anaxagoras


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