Meister Eckhart Quotes

Do not think that saintliness comes from occupation; it depends rather on what one is. The kind of work we do does not make us holy, but we may make it holy.

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

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 begin, whatever the cost, for it is here that you will find true peace, and nowhere else.

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... it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.

Therefore, look only for this fishhook, and you will be happily caught. The more you are caught, the more you will be liberated.

I have sought earnestly and with great diligence that good and high virtue by which man may draw closest to God... and as far as my intelligence would permit, I find that high virtue to be pure disinterest, that is, detachment from creatures. Our Lord said to Martha 'Unum est necessarium', which is to say; to be untroubled and pure, one thing is necessary and that is disinterest.

The beast that bears you fastest to perfection is suffering.

The first measn by which He draws is affinity, that affinity which brings creatures of the same species together, and like to its like. With this cord of affinity He drew men to the Godhead, Whom He always resembles. In order that God may draw more to Himself, and forget His wrath.

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.

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.

To be sure, our mental processes often go wrong, so that we imagine God to have gone away. What should be done then? Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure. Learn to behave thus even in deepest distress and keep yourself that way in any and every estate of life. I can give you no better advice than to find God where you lost him.

I maintain that all sorrow comes from love of those things of which loss deprives me.

There is something in the soul that is so akin to God that it is one with Him... It has nothing in common with anything created.

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

If I had a friend and loved him because of the benefits which this brought me and because of getting my own way, then it would not be my friend that I loved but myself. I should love my friend on account of his own goodness and virtues and account of all that he is in himself. Only if I love my friend in this way do I love him properly.

I have often said that a person who wishes to begin a good life should be like one who draws a circle. Let him or her get the center in the right place and keep it so and the circumference will be good.

Once a man came to me - it was not too long ago - and said that he had given away much landed property and many goods for his own sake so that he might save his soul. Then I thought: 'How little and how insignificant is what you have let go of! It is blindness and foolishness for you to continue looking at all you've let go of. If, however, you've let go of yourself, then you've really let go.'

The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God.

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.

There is in the soul a something in which God dwells, and there is in the soul a something in which the soul dwells in God.

I am what I wanted and I want what I am.

The seed of God is in us. If the seed had a good, wise and industrious cultivator, it would thrive all the more and grow up to God whose seed it is, and the fruit would be equal to the nature of God. Now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree, a hazel seed into a hazel tree, and the seed of God into God.

There are plenty to follow our Lord half-way, but not the other half. They will give up possessions, friends and honors, but it touches them to closely to disown themselves.

If anyone went on for a thousand years asking of life: 'Why are you living?' life, if it could answer, would only say, 'I live so that I may live.' That is because life lives out of its own ground and springs from its own source, and so it lives without asking why it is itself living.

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

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

I do not find God outside myself or conceive him except as my own and in me.

The man who has submitted his will and purposes entirely to God, carries God with him in all his works and in all circumstances.

The Ultimate and Highest leave taking is leaving God for GOD, leaving your notion of God for an Experience of That which transcends all notions.

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 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.

As long as I am this or that, or have this or that, I am not all things and I have not all things. Become pure till you neither are nor have either this or that; then you are omnipresent and, being neither this nor that, are all things.

Existence itself stands in need of nothing, for it lacks nothing, whereas everything else needs it, because outside of it there is nothing. Nothingness stands in need of existence, as a sick man lacks health and is in need. Health has no need of a sick man. To want nothing, therefore, characterizes the highest perfection, is fullest and purest existence.

In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.

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