Meister Eckhart Quotes

Your own efforts "did not bring it to pass," only God-but rejoice if God found a use for your efforts in His work.

He is conscious only of God...To be conscious of knowing God is to know about God and self.

Nature's intent is neither food, nor drink, nor clothing, nor comfort, nor anything else in which God is left out. Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly nature seeks, hunts, tries to ferret out the track on which God may be found.

Relation is the essence of everything that exists.

God is at home. We are in the far country.

You need seek God neither below or above.He is no farther away than the door of the heart.

I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will!

[W]e must come into a transformed knowing, an unknowing which comes not from ignorance but from knowledge.

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

Compassion is where peace and justice kiss

The greatest power available to man is not to use it.

God must act and pour himself into you the moment he finds you ready. Don't imagine that God can be compared to an earthly carpenter, who acts or doesn't act, as he wishes; who can will to do something or leave it undone, according to his pleasure. It is not that way with God: where and when God finds you ready, he must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that.

Nothing will be able to hinder us, if we desire and seek God alone, and take pleasure in nothing else.

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 man should orient his will and all his works to God and having only God in view go forward unafraid, not thinking, am I right or am I wrong? One who worked out all the chances before starting his first fight would never fight at all. And if, going to someplace, we must think how to set the front foot down, we shall never get there. It is our duty to do the next thing: go straight on, that is the right way.

The more we have the less we own.

The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want the kernel you must break the shell.

Our best chance of finding God is to look in the place where we left him.

When the Soul wants to experience something she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it.

Philosophers say the Soul is double-faced, her upper face gazes at God all the time and her lower face looks somewhat down, informing the senses; and the upper face, which is the summit of the soul, is in eternity and has nothing to do with time: it knows nothing of time or of body.

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

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

To grasp God in all things--this is the sign of your new birth.

For a heart to be perfectly ready it has to be perfectly empty. In this condition it has attained its maximum capacity.

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.

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.

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

Things are all made from nothing; hence their true source is nothing.

The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God's love; but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.

When I think of God's Kingdom, I am compelled to be silent because of its immensity, because God's Kingdom is none other than God himself with all His riches.

If the seal is pressed completely through the wax so that no wax remains without being impressed by the seal, then it becomes indistinguishably one with the seal. Similarly the soul becomes completely united with God.

Though one should live through all the time from Adam and all the time to come before the judgment day doing good works, yet he who, energising in his highest, purest part, crosses from time to eternity, verily in the sight of God this man conceives and does far more than anyone who lives throughout all past and future time, because this now includes the whole of time. One master says that in crossing over time into the now each power of the soul will surpass itself. . . .

As long as I am this or that, I am not all things.

Some people prefer solitude. They say their peace of mind depends on this. Others say they would be better off in church. If you do well, you do well wherever you are. If you fail, you fail wherever you are. Your surroundings don't matter. God is with you everywhere -- in the market place as well as in seclusion or in the church. If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you. God is not distracted by a multitude of things. Nor can we be.

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.

God is bound to act, to pour himself out (into thee) as soon as ever he shall find thee ready.

If we keep our eyes fixed on God alone, then truly he must work in us and nothing, neither the crowd nor any place can hinder him in this.

Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.

That which a man acquires by contemplation he should spend in love.

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

Be ready at all times for the gifts of God, and always for new ones.

God wants nothing from you but the gift of a peaceful heart.

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

Only those who have dared to let go can dare to re-enter.

God is equally near in all creatures.

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

There is nothing so much like God in all the universe as silence.

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