Meister Eckhart Quotes

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

As God can only be seen by His own light, so He can only be loved by His own love.

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

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

Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion.

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

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

There is no greater valor nor no sterner fight. He who would be what he ought to be must stop being what he is.

God is not good, or else he could do better.

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

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

Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly all nature seeks God and works toward [God].

Grace pours all beauty into the soul ... The soul means the world.

Remember this: all suffering comes to an end. And whatever you suffer authentically, God has suffered from it first.

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

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.

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.

God does not work in all hearts alike, but according to the preparation and sensitivity He finds in each.

No one is forgotten. It is a lie, any talk of God that does not comfort you.

This much is certain: when a man is happy, happy to the core and root of beatitude, he is no longer conscious of himself or anything else.

The soul loves the body. And consider too how it is that the body is more in the soul than the soul is in the body.

I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God.

Only he to whom God is present in everything and who employs his reason in the highest degree and has enjoyment in it knows anything of true peace and has a real kingdom of heaven.

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.

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.

I need to be silent for awhile, worlds are forming in my heart.

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

Let God work in you, give the work to God, and have peace. Don't worry if He works through your nature or above your nature, because both are His, nature and grace.

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.

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

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.

To be properly expressed a thing must proceed from within, moved by its form: it must come, not in from without but out from within.

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

The soul at its highest is found like God, but an angel gives a closer idea of Him. That is all an angel is: an idea of God.

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

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

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.

This then is salvation - when we marvel at the beauty of created things and praise their beautiful Creator.

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

That's all an angel is....an idea of God.

The love by which we love God is the very same love with which God has first loved us.

Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go.

Action and becoming are one.

What our Lord did was done with the intent, and this alone, that he might be with us and we with him.

We shall find God in everything alike, and find God always alike in everything.

Let God operate in thee; Hand the work over to Him and do not disquiet thyself as to whether or no He is working with nature or above nature, for His are both nature and grace.

Everything is full and pure at its source and precisely there, not outside.

Do not cling to the symbols, but get to the inner truth!

Relation is the essence of everything that exists.

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