Meister Eckhart Quotes

Allez, daz zal ist, daz hanget von einem, und ein hanget von nihte. Gotes rîchtuom und wîsheit und wârheit ist alzemâle ein in gote; ez enist niht ein, ez ist einicheit. Got hât allez, daz er hât, in einem; ez ist ein in im. Die meister sprechent, der himel loufe umbe, daz er alliu dinc in ein bringe; dar umbe löufet er alsô balde. Got hât alle vüllende als ein, und gotes natûre hanget daran und ist der sêle sælicheit, daz ein got ein ist; ez ist ir gezierde und ir êre.

They for whom God is not enough are greedy. The reward for all your works should be that they are known to God and that you seek God in them. Let this always be enough for you.

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.

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.

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.

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

You should not imagine that your reason can evolve to the extent of understanding God. Rather, if God is to shine divinely within you, your natural light cannot assist this process but must become a pure nothingness, going out of itself. Only then can God enter with his light, bringing back with him all that you have renounced and a thousand times more, including a new form which contains all things in itself.

But if God endures it for the sake of the benefit for you which he has foreseen in it, and if you are willing to suffer what he suffers and what passes through him to you, then it takes on the colour of God, and shame becomes honour, bitterness is sweetness and the deepest darkness becomes the clearest light. Then everything takes its flavour from God and becomes divine, for everything conforms itself to God, whatever befalls us, if we intend only him and nothing else is pleasing to us. Thus we shall grasp God in all bitterness as well as in the greatest sweetness.

Run into peace.

There are people who savour God in one way but not in another, and they want to possess God according to one manner of devotion and not another. I can tolerate this, but it is quite wrong. If we are to take God correctly, then we must take him equally in all things: in tribulation as in prosperity, in tears as in joy. He should always be the same for you. If you believe, without having committed a mortal sin, that you lack both devotion and serious intent and that, not having devotion or serious intent, you do not have God, and if you then grieve over this, this itself becomes your devotion and serious intent. Therefore you should not confine yourself to just one manner of devotion, since God is to be found in no particular way, neither this one nor that. That is why they do him wrong who take God just in one particular way. They take the way rather than God. Remember this then: intend God alone and seek him only. Then whatever kinds of devotional practice come to you, be content with those. For your intention should be directed at God alone and at nothing else.

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

But many people want to look upon God with the eyes with which they look upon a cow; they want to love God the way they love a cow that you love because it gives you milk and cheese. This is how people behave who want to love God because of external wealth or inner comfort; but they do not love God properly: rather, they love their self interest.

Pay heed to this, how you are turned toward your God, when you are in church or in your cell. Maintain this same state of mind and bear it among the crowd and into unrest and dissimilarity.

For whoever does not truly have God within themselves, but must constantly receive him in one external thing after another, seeking God in diverse ways, whether by particular works, people or places, such a person does not possess God. The least thing can impede them, for they do not have God and do not seek, love and intend him alone. It is not only bad company but also good company that can obstruct them, not only the street but also the church, not only evil words and deeds but also good words and deeds, for the obstruction lies within themselves, since in them God has not become all things.

For we should be as our Lord told us: “You should be like those who at all times watch and wait for their Lord (Luke 12:36). Truly, such vigilant people are alert and on the watch for the Lord for whom they wait; they look to see if he is not by chance concealed in what befalls them, however strange it may be to them. So we too should consciously look out for our Lord in all things. This demands much effort, and must cost us all that our senses and faculties are capable of. But this is the right thing for us to do, so that we grasp God in the same way in all things and find him equally everywhere.