58 Wonderful Quotes from Eckhart Tolle

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“To love is to recognize yourself in another.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“This, too, will pass.”

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

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

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

“All problems are illusions of the mind.”

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

“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.”

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

“If not now, when?”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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