Meister Eckhart Quotes

The generous person is always just, and the just who is always generous may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.

If your heart were sincere and upright, every creature would be unto you a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine.

A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness.

The esteem of wise and good men is the greatest of all temporal encouragements to virtue; and it is a mark of an abandoned spirit to have no regard to it.

A good man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life, as he would in his journey.

Everything will come right if you are pure and sincere. We want hundreds like you bursting upon society and bringing new life and vigor of the spirit wherever they go.

It is the property of a great and good mind to covet, not the fruit of good deeds, but good deeds themselves, and to seek for a good man even after having met with bad men.

It is not your outward appearance that you should beautify, but your soul, adorning it with good works.

Integrity, like humility, is a quality which vanishes the moment we are conscious of it in ourselves. We see it only in others.

He who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error. For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.

To be good and disagreeable is high treason against the royalty of virtue.

To gain a reputation for virtue, grieve over those you injure.

Be noble in every thought And in every deed!

In judging our progress as individuals we tend to concentrate on external factors such as one's social position, influence and popularity, wealth and standard of education... But internal factors may be even more crucial in assessing one's development as a human being. Honesty, sincerity, simplicity, humility, pure generosity, absence of vanity, readiness to serve others - qualities which are within easy reach of every soul - are the foundation of one's spiritual life.

Let thy virtue be too high for the familiarity of names, and if thou must speak of it, be not ashamed to stammer about it.

He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.

Do not say that you have chaste minds if you have unchaste eyes, because an unchaste eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart.

Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.

The superior man honors his virtuous nature, and maintains constant inquiry and study, seeking to carry it out to its breadth and greatness, so as to omit none of the more exquisite and minute points which it embraces, and to raise it to its greatest height and brilliancy.

Those who preached faith, or in other words a pure mind, have always produced more popular virtue than those who preached good acts, or the mere regulation of outward works.

A doctrine-teaching, character-building university, the Brigham Young University is dedicated to the building of character and faith, for character is higher than intellect . . . . We are men of God first, men of letters second, men of science third, and noted men fourth, men of rectitude rather than academic competence. . . . Our academic training must be as impeccable as our lives.

Unless the vessel be pure, everything which is poured into it will turn sour.

Every instance of obedience, from right motives, strengthens us spiritually, whilst every act of disobedience weakens us.