Meister Eckhart

“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.”

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

“When the Soul wants to experience something she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it.”

“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.”

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

“The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.”

“The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great.”

“Every creature is a word of God.”

“The more we have the less we own.”

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

“And suddenly you know: It's time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.”

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

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

“I tell you the truth, any object you have in your mind, however good, will be a barrier between you and the inmost Truth.”

“I am what I wanted and I want what I am.”

“Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion.”

“A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.”

“We are all meant to be mothers of God...for God is always needing to be born.”

“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. ”

“God is at home. We are in the far country.”

“Love is as strong as death, as hard as Hell. Death separates the soul from the body, but love separates all things from the soul.”

“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.”

“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.”

“One must learn an inner solitude, wherever one may be.”

“One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works.”

“Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love a cow - for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort. They do not rightly love God, when they love Him for their own advantage. ”

“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.”

“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.”

“Wisdom consists in doing the next thing you have to do, doing it with your whole heart, and finding delight in doing it.”

“Run into peace.”

“Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.”

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

“God is greater than God.”

“If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.”

“All God wants of man is a peaceful heart.”

“Alle Dinge müssen, der Mensch allein ist das Wesen, welches will.”

“Nobody at any time is cut off from God.”

“Some people prefer solitude. They say their peace of mind depends on this.Others say they would be better off in church.If you do well, you do well wherever you are. If you fail, you fail wherever you are. Your surroundings don't matter. God is with you everywhere -- in the market place as well as in seclusion or in the church.If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you.God is not distracted by a multitude of things.Nor can we be.”

“My Lord told me a joke. And seeing Him laugh has done more for me than any scripture I will ever read.”

“Nothing in all creation is so like God as stillness.”

“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.”

“If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.”

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

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

“Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.”

“Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.”