Quotes from Meister Eckhart

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

The more we have the less we own.

We rarely find people who achieve great things without first going astray.

Whoever possesses God in their being has Him in a divine manner, and He shines out to them in all things; for them all things taste of God and in all things it is God's image that they see.

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

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

Even now one rarely hears of people achieving great things unless they first stumble in some respect.

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

In this breaking-through, I receive that God and I are one. Then I am what I was, and then I neither diminish nor increase, for I am then an immovable cause that moves all things.

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.

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.

The less theorizing you do about God, the more receptive you are to His inpouring.

Every creature is a word of God and is a book about God.

People should not worry so 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 sanctified our works.

God is greater than God.

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

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.

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.

Where there is Isness, there God is. Creation is the giving of isness from God. And that is why God becomes where any creature expresses God.

When God laughs at the soul and the soul laughs back at God, the persons of the Trinity are begotten. When the Father laughs at the Son and the Son laughs back at the Father, that laughter gives pleasure, that pleasure gives joy, that joy gives love, and that love is the Holy Spirit.

The most powerful form of prayer, and the one which can virtually gain all things and which is the worthiest work of all, is that which flows from a free mind. The freer the mind is, the more powerful and worthy, the more useful, praiseworthy and perfect the prayer and the work become. A free mind can achieve all things.

There is no need to look for God here or there. He is no farther away than the door of your own heart.

Now, you might say: how can this be? I cannot feel his presence in any way. Listen to this. Sensing his presence is not in your power but in his. He will show himself when it suits him to do so, and he can also remain hidden if that is his wish. This is what Christ meant when he said to Nicodemus: 'The spirit breathes where it will: you hear its voice but do not know where it comes from, or where it is going' (John 3:8).

But of God you can never have a sufficiency. The more you have of God, the more you desire. If you could ever have enough of God, so that you were content with him, then God would not be God.