Eckhart Tolle Quotes

1. “You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are !”

2. “ I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within, you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten”

3. “The past has no power over the present moment.”

4. “Some changes look negative on the surface but you will soon realize that space is being created in your life for something new to emerge.”

5. “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”

6. “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

7. “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.”

8. “Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”

9. “Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”

10. “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”

11. “To love is to recognize yourself in another.”

12. “Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.”

13. “Life is the dancer and you are the dance.”

14. “Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”

15. “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”

16. “Anything that you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you.”

17. “You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”

18. “You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”

19. “Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of
ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”

20. “A genuine relationship is one that is not dominated by the ego with its image-making and self-seeking. In a genuine relationship, there is an outward flow of open, alert attention toward the other person in which there is no wanting whatsoever.”

21. “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.”

22. “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”

23. “Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to "die before you die" --- and find that there is no death.”

24. “Any action is often better than no action, especially if you have been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time. If it is a mistake, at least you learn something, in which case it's no longer a mistake. If you remain stuck, you learn nothing.”

25. “Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose”

26. “Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.”

27. “Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.”

28. “Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.”

29. “Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.”

30. “Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.”

31. “All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”

32. “This, too, will pass.”

33. “If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without.”

34. “I have lived with several Zen masters -- all of them cats.”

35. “You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge. But it can only emerge if something fundamental changes in your state of consciousness.”

36. “All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by too much future, and
not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms
of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.”

37. “It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”

38. “Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.”

39. “...the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whaterver form. Both are illusions.”

40. “What a liberation to realize that the “voice in my head” is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that.”

41. “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you will ever have.”

42. “Don't let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.”

43. “To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease.”

44. “Don't Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness”

45. “All the things that truly matter, beauty, love, creativity, joy and inner peace arise from beyond the mind.”

46. “All problems are illusions of the mind.”

47. “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”

48. “When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought.”

49. “As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out the present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action.”

50. “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.”

51. “Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?”

52. “Being must be felt. It can't be thought.”

53. “If not now, when?”

54. “See if you can catch yourself complaining, in either speech or thought, about a situation you find yourself in, what other people do or say, your surroundings, your life situation, even the weather. To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim. When you speak out, you are in your power. So change the situation by taking action or by speaking out if necessary or possible; leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness.”

55. “This is my secret," he said. "I don't mind what happens.”

56. “Humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die. … If the structures of the human mind remain unchanged, we will always end up re-creating the same world, the same evils, the same dysfunction.”

57. “Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.”

58. “What you react to in others, you strengthen in yourself.”

59. “The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.”

60. “The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist.”

61. “Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is 
primary, all else secondary.”

62. “In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being.”

63. “Man made God in his own image...”

64. “If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future.”

65. “To recognize one's own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”

66. “The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.”

67. “Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you.”

68. “The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.”

69. “Nothing has happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now.”

70. “Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.”

71. “What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.”

72. “The beginning of freedom is the realization that you are not “the thinker.” The moment you start watching the thinker, a higher level of consciousness becomes activated. You then begin to realize that there is a vast realm of intelligence beyond thought, that thought is only a tiny aspect of that intelligence. You also realize that all the things that truly matter – beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace – arise from beyond the mind. You begin to awaken.”

73. “You are not IN the universe, you ARE the universe, an intrinsic part of it. Ultimately you are not a person, but a focal point where the universe is becoming conscious of itself. What an amazing miracle.”

74. “The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.”

75. “Become conscious of being conscious.”

76. “Knowing yourself is to be rooted in Being, instead of lost in your mind.”

77. “every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in.”

78. “You have so much to learn from your enemies.”

79. “It is when we are trapped in incessant streams of compulsive thinking that the universe really disintegrates for us, and we lose the ability to sense the interconnectedness of all that exists.”

80. “Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now.”

81. “Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role.”

82. “You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.”

83. “Reading is my passion and my escape since I was 5 years old. Overall, children don't realize the magic that can live inside their own heads. Better even then any movie.”

84. “Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.”

85. “You become most powerful in whatever you do if the action is performed for its own sake rather than as a means to protect, enhance, or conform to your role identity.”

86. “Watch any plant or animal and let it teach you acceptance of what is, surrender to the Now.
Let it teach you Being.
Let it teach you integrity — which means to be one, to be yourself, to be real.
Let it teach you how to live and how to die, and how not to make living and dying into a problem.”

87. “Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.”

88. “Once you have identified with some form of negativity, you do not want to let it go, and on a deeply unconscious level, you do not want positive change. It would threaten your identity as a depressed, angry or hard-done by person. You will then ignore, deny or sabotage the positive in your life. This is a common phenomenon. 
It is also insane.”

89. “The ego wants to want more than it wants to have.”

90. “What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.”

91. “Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cant prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?”

92. “The human condition: lost in thought.”

93. “Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. … The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose, is to bring that power into this world.”

94. “...whenever there is inspiration...and enthusiasm...there is a creative empowerment that goes far beyond what a mere person is capable of.”

95. “When another recognizes you, that recognition draws the dimension of Being more fully into this world through both of you. That is the love that redeems the world.”

96. “One thing we do know: Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.”

97. “Life isn't as serious as my mind makes it out to be.”

98. “On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a joyous energy behind what you do.”

99. “If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion and peace.”

100. “Die to the past every moment. You don't need it. Only refer to it when it is absolutely relevant to the present. Feel the power of this moment and the fullness of Being. Feel your presence.”

101. “Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not "fit in" with others or is rejected by them for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force.”

102. “Doing is never enough if you neglect Being.”

103. “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life”

104. “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but you thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.”

105. “Focus attention on the feeling inside you. Know that it is the pain-body. Accept that it is there. Don't think about it - don't let the feeling turn into thinking. Don't judge or analyze. Don't make an identity for yourself out of it. Stay present, and continue to be the observer of what is happening inside you. Become aware not only of the emotional pain but also of "the one who observes," the silent watcher. This is the power of the Now, the power of your own conscious presence. Then see what happens.”

106. “Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it & let it be without imposing a word of mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.”

107. “Don't look for peace. Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender”

108. “Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe.”

109. “The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction.”

110. “In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.”

111. “You are here to enable the divine purpose of the Universe to unfold. That is how important you are!”

112. “I don't want it to end, and so, as every therapist knows, the ego does not want an end to its “problems” because they are part of its identity. If no one will listen to my sad story, I can tell it to myself in my head, over and over, and feel sorry for myself, and so have an identity as someone who is being treated unfairly by life or other people, fate or God. It gives definition to my self-image, makes me into someone, and that is all that matters to the ego.”

113. “The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare.” 

114. “Negativity is totally unnatural. It is a psychic pollutant, and there is a deep link between the poisoning and destruction of nature and the vast negativity that has accumulated in the collective human psyche. No other life-form on the planet knows negativity, only humans, just as no other life-form violates and poisons the Earth that sustains it. Have you ever seen an unhappy flower or a stressed oak tree? Have you some across a depressed dolphin, a frog that has a problem with self-esteem, a cat that cannot relax, or a bird that carries hatred and resentment? The only animals that may occasionally experience something akin to negativity or show signs of neurotic behavior are those that live in close contact with humans and so link into the humans mind and its insanity.”

115. “Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don’t see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. 
To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.”

116. “Through the present moment, you have access to the power of life itself, that which has traditionally been called "God." As soon as you turn away from it, God ceases to be a reality in your life, and all you are left with is the mental concept of God, which some people believe in and others deny. Even belief in God is only a poor substitute for the living reality of God manifesting every moment of your life.”

117. “Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much. Language consists of five basic sounds produced by the vocal cords. They are the vowels a, e, i, o, u. The other sounds are consonants produced by air pressure: s, f, g, and so forth. Do you believe some combination of such basic sounds could ever explain who you are, or the ultimate purpose of the universe, or even what a tree or stone is in its depth?”

118. “Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”