Quotes from Meister Eckhart

Where I will nothing for myself, there wills instead my God.

This birth which takes place unceasingly in eternity is the very same birth which has taken place within human nature.

We must withdraw, then, from all things, for when God works, he works without an image.

And so in my view the most important thing of all is that we should give ourselves up entirely to God whenever he allows anything to befall us, whether insult, tribulation or any other kind of suffering, accepting it with joy and gratitude and allowing God to guide us all the more rather than seeking these things out ourselves.

St Augustine says: 'The true servant of God does not desire to be told or to be given what they would like to hear or see, for their prime and highest wish is to hear what is most pleasing to God.'3

We should not content ourselves with a God of thoughts for, when the thoughts come to an end, so too shall God. Rather, we should have a living God who is beyond the thoughts of all people and all creatures. That kind of God will not leave us, unless we ourselves choose to turn away from him.

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

When earth discovered that its nature was unlike that of heaven and far from it, it fled from heaven to the lowest place it could find and remained there in stillness.

And then, if the child is born in me, the sight of my father and all my friends slain before my eyes would leave my heart untouched. For if my heart were moved thereby, the child would not have been born in me, though its birth might be near.

There is no better advice on how to find God than to seek him where we left him: do now, when you cannot find God, what you did when last you had him, and then you will find him again.

You should give your all to God, and then worry no more about what he may do with what is his.

If you wish to know God, you should not only be like the Son, but you should be the Son himself.

Thus the soul's pursuit continues, for she holds to this knowing-by-unknowing.

And St. Paul knew this well when he said, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate

And St. Paul knew this well when he said, "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

This is also what was meant when that loving soul said, "I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer." (Song of Solomon 5:6)

St. John says, ". . . the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (1:5) and "he came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. . ." (1:11-12)

He came forth rejoicing as a bridegroom and suffered the pangs of love. Then He returned to His secret chamber in the silence and stillness of the everlasting Fatherhood.

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

For with God we can miss nothing. We can no more miss anything with God than God can. Accept the one way from God then, and draw all that is good into it.

A perfect and true will can only exist when we have been entirely taken up into God's will and no longer have our own will; whoever does this the more, the more and the more truly they are rooted in God. Indeed, a single Ave Maria spoken in this spirit, when we have stripped ourselves of ourselves, is worth more than the repetition of a thousand psalters without it. In fact, a single step would be better with it than to cross the sea without it.

If you hold to God, then he will give you goodness. If you seek God, then you will find both God and all goodness. Indeed, if you trod on a stone while in this state of mind, it would be a more godly act than if you were to receive the body of our Lord while being concerned only for yourself and having a less detached attitude of mind.

You should love, respect and regard all others as yourself; and you should feel that whatever happens to someone else, whether good things or bad, is happening to you ... If you love blessedness in yourself more than in another, this is wrong, for if you love blessedness in yourself more than in another, than you love yourself [instead of others], and where you love yourself, God is not your sole love, and that is wrong.

The light is satisfied only in the innermost place, where no one dwells. It is within you even deeper than you are in yourself. It is the ground of simple silence that is motionless in itself. Yet from its stillness, all things move and all things receive their life, that they may live in accordance with this reason (vernunftecliche) and be conformed to it within themselves.