Eckhart Tolle is a spiritual teacher and author. He’s one of the most inspiring and prominent figures. Eckhart Tolle was born in Germany and underwent an inner transformation at 29. Today, he’s one of the most inspiring and well-known spiritual teachers.
Eckhart Tolle wrote two international bestsellers, The Power of Now and A New Earth. He focuses on the present and helps people find inner peace. The following are inspiring and enlightening Eckhart Tolle quotes.
The best Eckhart Tolle quotes
1. “To realize that you are not your thoughts is when you begin to awaken spiritually.” -Eckhart Tolle
2. “You are the universe, you aren’t in the universe.” -Eckhart Tolle
3. “You are not a problem that needs solving.” -Eckhart Tolle
4. “Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems – most life situations are – but find out if you have a problem at this moment. Do you have a problem now?” -Eckhart Tolle
5. “Your entire life only happens in this moment. The present moment is life itself. Yet, people live as if the opposite were true and treat the present moment as a stepping stone to the next moment – a means to an end.” -Eckhart Tolle
6. “If you are not living this moment, you are not really living.” -Eckhart Tolle
7. “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.” -Eckhart Tolle
8. “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” -Eckhart Tolle
9. “I’m grateful for always this moment, the now, no matter what form it takes.” -Eckhart Tolle
10. “Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.” -Eckhart Tolle
11. “Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.” -Eckhart Tolle
12. “Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” -Eckhart Tolle
13. “Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it is.” -Eckhart Tolle
14. “This, too, will pass.” -Eckhart Tolle
15. “Acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, a subtle energy vibration, is consciousness.” -Eckhart Tolle
16. “You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” -Eckhart Tolle
17. “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” -Eckhart Tolle
18. “To love is to recognize yourself in another.” -Eckhart Tolle
19. “Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.” -Eckhart Tolle
20. “It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.” -Eckhart Tolle
21. “Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.” -Eckhart Tolle
22. “No ego can last for long without the need for more. Therefore, wanting keeps the ego alive much more than having. The ego wants to want more than it wants to have. And so the shallow satisfaction of having is always replaced by more wanting.” -Eckhart Tolle
23. “Being must be felt. It can’t be thought.” -Eckhart Tolle
24. “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.” -Eckhart Tolle
25. “To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.” -Eckhart Tolle
26. “You find God the moment you realize that you don’t need to seek God.” -Eckhart Tolle
27. “What a caterpillar calls the end of the world we call a butterfly.” -Eckhart Tolle
28. “The moment that judgment stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.” -Eckhart Tolle
29. “As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease.” -Eckhart Tolle
30. “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.” -Eckhart Tolle
31. “On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a joyous energy behind what you do.” -Eckhart Tolle
32. “If there isn’t an emanation of love and joy, complete presence and openness toward all beings, then it is not enlightenment.” -Eckhart Tolle
33. “People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens for their happiness. They don’t realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe.” -Eckhart Tolle
34. “Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed.” -Eckhart Tolle
35. “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.” -Eckhart Tolle
36. “Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.” -Eckhart Tolle
37. “When you realize it’s not personal, there is no longer a compulsion to react as if it were.” -Eckhart Tolle
38. “Allow nature to teach you stillness. When you look at a tree and perceive its stillness, you become still yourself.” -Eckhart Tolle
39. “You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don’t have a life. You are life.” -Eckhart Tolle
40. “People don’t realize that now is all there ever is; there is no past or future except as memory or anticipation in your mind.” -Eckhart Tolle
41. “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.” -Eckhart Tolle
42. “When you become comfortable with uncertainty, infinite possibilities open up in your life.” -Eckhart Tolle
43. “The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation.” -Eckhart Tolle
44. “When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.” -Eckhart Tolle
45. “For many people who are so lost in their minds, so much involved in their thought processes, the only moments they have when they are not trapped in that is when they are relating to their animal, their pet.” -Eckhart Tolle
46. “I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now.” -Eckhart Tolle
47. “All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.” -Eckhart Tolle
48. “Nothing out there will ever satisfy you except temporarily and superficially, but you may need to experience many disillusionments before you realize that truth.” -Eckhart Tolle
49. “There is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the ‘isness’ of this moment.” -Eckhart Tolle
50. “If inner factors such as fear, guilt, or inertia prevented you from taking action, they will dissolve in the light of your conscious presence.” -Eckhart Tolle
51. “Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.” -Eckhart Tolle
52. “Life is the dancer and you are the dance.” -Eckhart Tolle
53. “Don’t seek happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it.” -Eckhart Tolle
54. “The eternal present is the space within which your whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant.” -Eckhart Tolle
55. “Close your eyes and say to yourself: ‘I wonder what my next thought is going to be.’ Then become very alert and wait for the next thought.” -Eckhart Tolle
56. “Don’t wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.” -Eckhart Tolle
57. “When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently.” -Eckhart Tolle
58. “Resistance is weakness and fear masquerading as strength. What the ego sees as weakness is your Being in its purity, innocence, and power. What it sees as strength is weakness.” -Eckhart Tolle
59. “The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.” -Eckhart Tolle
60. “How do you let go of attachment to things? Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them.” -Eckhart Tolle
61. “Those who do not attempt to appear more than they are but are simply themselves, stand out as remarkable and are the only ones who truly make a difference in this world.” -Eckhart Tolle
62. “When there is stress, it is usually a sign that the ego has returned, and you are cutting yourself off from the creative power of the universe.” -Eckhart Tolle
63. “Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand and becoming comfortable with not knowing.” -Eckhart Tolle
64. “Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life – to allow life to live through you.” -Eckhart Tolle
65. “When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what’s around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.” -Eckhart Tolle
66. “Here is a new spiritual practice for you: don’t take your thoughts too seriously.” -Eckhart Tolle
67. “So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action – just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord.” -Eckhart Tolle
68. “Enlightenment is not only the end of suffering and of continuous conflict within and without, but also the end of the dreadful enslavement to incessant thinking.” -Eckhart Tolle
69. “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.” -Eckhart Tolle
70. “The foundation of greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.” -Eckhart Tolle
71. “Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.” -Eckhart Tolle
72. “If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the universe.” -Eckhart Tolle
73. “Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.” -Eckhart Tolle
74. “When you want to arrive at your goal more than you want to be doing what you are doing, you become stressed.” -Eckhart Tolle
75. “To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment.” -Eckhart Tolle
76. “As long as we define ourselves in terms of our pains and problems, we will never be free from them.” -Eckhart Tolle
77. “If you really want to know your mind, the body will always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the emotion, or rather feel it in your body.” -Eckhart Tolle
78. “When you no longer defend or attempt to strengthen the form of yourself, you step out of identification with form, with mental self-image. Through becoming less (in the ego’s perception), you in fact undergo an expansion and make room for Being to come forward. True power, who you are beyond form, can then shine through the apparently weakened form.” -Eckhart Tolle
79. “Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.” -Eckhart Tolle
80. “Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment… Surrender to what is. Say ‘yes’ to life – and see how life starts suddenly to start working for you rather than against you.” -Eckhart Tolle
81. “Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness.” -Eckhart Tolle
82. “In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization.” -Eckhart Tolle
83. “You attract and manifest whatever corresponds to your inner state.” -Eckhart Tolle
84. “Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now.” -Eckhart Tolle
85. “Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.” -Eckhart Tolle
86. “Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” -Eckhart Tolle
87. “If small things have the power to disturb you, then who you think you are is exactly that: small.” -Eckhart Tolle
88. “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.” -Eckhart Tolle
89. “Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose.” -Eckhart Tolle
90. “You can always cope with the present moment, but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection – you cannot cope with the future.” -Eckhart Tolle
91. “Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.” -Eckhart Tolle
92. “Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.” -Eckhart Tolle
93. “You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.” -Eckhart Tolle
94. “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.” -Eckhart Tolle
95. “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.” -Eckhart Tolle
96. “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.” -Eckhart Tolle
97. “If there are people you haven’t forgiven, you’re not going to really awaken. You have to let go.” -Eckhart Tolle
98. “We should purify our innate well of contentment – what a wonderful expression – and then external things will be in harmony with us.” -Eckhart Tolle
99. “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.” -Eckhart Tolle
100. “The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.” -Eckhart Tolle
101. “Even the most seemingly unpleasant situations – if you become aligned with it, something good will emerge from that.” -Eckhart Tolle
102. “So many people have this idea: I want to achieve something great or be somebody great. And they neglect the step that leads to greatness. They don’t honor this step at this moment because they have this idea of some future moment where they are going to be great.” -Eckhart Tolle
Final thoughts
Eckhart Tolle inspires you to live in the present. It’s a powerful and significant state that leads to inner peace. His teachings are straightforward and enlightening. You can get a lot of wisdom by thinking about his words. So, follow Eckhart Tolle’s teachings. Release your ego and negative self-image and move toward your true identity.
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Featured image by David Em and Wikimedia Commons.