Truth is something so noble that if God could turn aside from it, I could keep the truth and let God go.
Meister EckhartRead
I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will!
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote distinguishes between making mistakes and being stubborn in one's beliefs.
Meister Eckhart emphasizes the difference between making errors in judgment, which is a natural part of human cognition, and being a heretic, which implies a deliberate choice to reject accepted truths or norms. He suggests that errors arise from the mind's capacity to misjudge, while heresy stems from a willful defiance that corrupts one's connection to fundamental beliefs.
Themes
ErrorHereticMindWillBelief
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can inspire a person reflecting on their mistakes during a motivational speech about failure.
More from Meister Eckhart
All quotes →...Where and when God finds you ready, he must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that.
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What good is it to me that Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.
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In this breaking-through, I receive that God and I are one. Then I am what I was, and then I neither diminish nor increase, for I am then an immovable cause that moves all things.
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Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things. Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God. Every creature is a word of God.
Meister EckhartRead
If you love yourself, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as you love another person less than you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself but if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one person and that person is both God and man.
Meister EckhartRead
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