Meister Eckhart Quotes

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.

Perfection does not consist in any singular state or condition of life, or in any particular set of duties, but in holy and religious conduct of ourselves in every state of Life.

You don't become a saint until you lead a good life whether in Tibet or Italy or America.

The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.

Virtue is akin to holiness, an attribute of godliness.

He who is educated and eloquent must not measure his saintliness merely by his fluency.

Do you think you can be righteous and holy with impunity?

Grace is the mother and nurse of holiness, and not the apologist of sin.

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.

Eligibility for a temple recommend is not based on financial worth. That has nothing whatever to do with it. It is based on consistent personal behavior, on the goodness of one's life. It is not concerned with money matters, but rather with things of eternity.

We have to become saints. We have to become like Christ. Anything less is simply not enough.

I thank God that I can say on my death bed that I am a virtuous woman.

Abstinence from sins is better than seeking help afterwards.

Many people genuinely do not want to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.

To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.

I'm trying to lead a good Christian life, so there ain't too much spicy to tell about me.

Not all human souls but only the pious ones are divine.

In a state of grace, the soul is like a well of limpid water, from which flow only streams of clearest crystal. Its works are pleasing both to God and man, rising from the River of Life, beside which it is rooted like a tree.

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.

Sanctification is the real change in man from the sordidness of sin to the purity of God's image.

When I conform to truth, I do not conform to an abstract principle; I conform to the nature of God.

God looks at the clean hands, not the full ones.

No man can become a saint in his sleep.

Piety is the most solid goodness, and the vilest of what is evil is vice.

The world sees in our conduct, in our behaviour, the proof that we are the real children of God.