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.

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

What a man takes in by contemplation, that he pours out in love.

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.

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

All God wants of man is a peaceful heart.

When you are thwarted, it is your own attitude that is out of order.

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

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

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.

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

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 outward man is the swinging door; the inner man is the still hinge.

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.

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

Words derive their power from the original word.

Every creature is a word of God.

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

The more we have the less we own.

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

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.

To be full of things is to be empty of God. To be empty of things is to be full of God.

You may call God love, you may call God goodness. But the best name for God is compassion.

One person who has mastered life is better than a thousand persons who have mastered only the contents of books, but no one can get anything out of life without God.

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.

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me.