Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Meister Eckhart (German Christian Mystic)

Meister Eckhart (c.1260–1327,) originally Johann Eckhart, also Eckhart von Hochheim, was a German Dominican mystic and writer. A theologian and preacher, he represented God as dwelling in man’s soul and charted a course of union between the individual soul and God.

Born near Gotha in Thuringia, Germany, Eckhart joined the Dominican convent of Erfurt and studied in Strasbourg and Cologne. In Paris, he received a master’s degree in theology in 1302. He became provincial in 1303, later vicar, in Bohemia. In 1311–13, he was again in Paris as a teacher and then was a professor of theology in Strasbourg until 1323. Finally, he taught and preached as a regent in Cologne.

Eckhart conceived an ambitious speculative and exegetical theology called the Opus Tripartitum. When Eckhart was accused of heretical teaching in 1326 and tried before the court of the Archbishop of Cologne, he appealed to the Pope but died during the proceedings. In 1329, Pope John XXII condemned Eckhart’s 28 propositions as heretical or misleading but declared that Eckhart had recanted before his death.

The translator and mysticism scholar Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache wrote the acclaimed biography Master Eckhart and the Rhineland Mystics (1957.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Meister Eckhart

The ultimate leave-taking is the leaving of God for God.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: God

The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God as if he stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Knowledge

The Wayless Way, where the Sons of God lose themselves and, at the same time, find themselves.
Meister Eckhart

Truly, it is in darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest to all of us.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Light

It is a fair trade and an equal exchange: to the extent that you depart from things, thus far, no more and no less, God enters into you with all that is his, as far as you have stripped yourself of yourself in all things. It is here that you should begin, whatever the cost, for it is here that you will find true peace, and nowhere else.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Simplicity

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is “thank you,” that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Appreciation, Gratitude, Life, Blessings, Love, Thankfulness, Prayer

Jesus might have said, “I became man for you. If you do not become God for me, you wrong me.”
Meister Eckhart
Topics: God

The more we have the less we own.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Property, Possessions

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.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: God

All God wants of man is a peaceful heart.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Heart

He who would be serene and pure needs but one thing, detachment.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Serenity

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

Man goes far away or near but God never goes far-off; he is always standing close at hand, and even if he cannot stay within he goes no further than the door.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: God

The very best and utmost of attainment in this life is to remain still and let God act and speak in thee.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Prayer, Meditation

If God gave the soul his whole creation she would not be filled thereby but only with himself.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Soul

Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their 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.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Faith, Divinity, God

To be sure, our mental processes often go wrong, so that we imagine God to have gone away. What should be done then? Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure. Learn to behave thus even in deepest distress and keep yourself that way in any and every estate of life. I can give you no better advice than to find God where you lost him.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Faith

What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Youth, Childhood

The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Mistakes

The outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Self-Discovery

If you seek the kernel, then you must break the shell. And 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.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Nature

Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Beginnings

People should not worry as 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 sanctify our works.
Meister Eckhart

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

We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all eternity…. But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Birth

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Truth

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.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: Present, The Present

The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: God

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

To be full of things is to be empty of God. To be empty of things is to be full of God.
Meister Eckhart
Topics: God

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