Best 165 quotes of Meister Eckhart on MyQuotes

Meister Eckhart

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    Meister Eckhart

    Above thought is the intellect, which still seeks: it goes about looking, spies out here and there, picks up and drops. But above the intellect that seeks is another intellect which does not seek but stays in its pure, simple being, which is embraced in that light.

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    Meister Eckhart

    Action and becoming are one.

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    Meister Eckhart

    A free mind is one which is untroubled and unfettered by anything, which has not bound its best part to any particular manner of being or worship and which does not seek its own interest in anything but is always immersed in God's most precious will. . . . There is no work which men and women can perform, however small, which does not draw from this its power and strength.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    .... all blades of grass, wood, and stone, all things are One.

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    Meister Eckhart

    A life of rest and peace in God is good; a life of pain lived in patience is still better; but to have peace in a life of pain is best of all.

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    Meister Eckhart

    A man may go into the field and say his prayer and be aware of God, or he may be in Church and be aware of God; but if he is more aware of Him because he is in a quiet place, that is his own deficiency and not due to God, Who is alike present in all things and places, and is willing to give Himself everywhere so far as lies in Him... He knows God rightly who knows Him everywhere.

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    Meister Eckhart

    And so, too, I speak of love: he who is held by it is held by the strongest of bonds, and yet the stress is pleasant. Moreover, he can sweetly bear all that happens to him. When one has found this bond, he looks for no other.

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    Meister Eckhart

    A pure heart is one that is unencumbered, unworried, uncommitted and which does not want its own way about anything but which, rather, is submerged in the loving will of God.

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    Meister Eckhart

    A question arises regarding the angels who dwell with us, serve us and protect us, whether their joys are equal to those of the angels in heaven, or whether they are diminished by the fact that they protect and serve us. No, they are certainly not; for the work of the angels is the will of God, and the will of God is the work of the angels; their service to us does not hinder their joy nor their working. If God told an angel to go to a tree and pluck caterpillars off it, the angel would be quite ready to do so, and it would be his happiness, if it were the will of God.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

    Behold how all those people are merchants who shun great sins and would like to be good and do good deeds in God's honour, such as fasts, vigils, prayers, and similar good deeds of all kinds. They do all these things so that our Lord may give them something, or so that God may do something dear to them. All these people are merchants.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    By humility, out of an enemy He has made a friend, which is more than to have created a new earth.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    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. However “sacred” a calling may be, as it is a calling, it has no power to sanctify.

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    Every creature is a word of God.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    For then I knew my soul - every soul - has always held Him.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

    God holds each of us by a string. When we sin, we cut the string. But God ties it up again, making a knot. Each time our wrongdoing cuts the string, God ties another knot drawing us up closer to Him.

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    Meister Eckhart

    God is at home, it's we who have gone out for a walk.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    God is in all things, but so far as God is Divine and so far as He is rational, God is nowhere so properly as in the soul - in the innermost of the soul

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    Meister Eckhart

    God is like a person who clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away. God lies in wait for us with nothing so much as love.

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    Meister Eckhart

    God is nearer to me than I am to myself; He is just as near to wood and stone, but they do not know it.

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    Meister Eckhart

    God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction.

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    He who can make distinction in God without number or quantity, knows that the three persons of the Trinity are one God.

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    Meister Eckhart

    He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment.

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

    If I say that God is good, that is not true. God is not good. I am good, and if I say that God is wise, that is not true. I am wiser than he is.

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

    If you seek the kernel, then you must break the shell. An likewise, if you would know the reality of Nature, you must destroy the appearance, and the farther you go beyond the appearance, the nearer you will be to the essence.

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

    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.

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    Meister Eckhart

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

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    Meister Eckhart

    In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.