Eckhart Tolle Quotes

251 Quotes for Inner Stillness and Deep Connection with the Present Moment

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

“You don't think, you are being thought by thought.”

“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.”

“When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself.”

“The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality”

“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?”

“Let me say it again:
the present moment is all you ever have.”

“The future is usually imagined as either better or worse than the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory.”

“Ask yourself what “problem” you have right now, not next year, tomorrow, or five minutes from now. What is wrong with this moment?”

“When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.”

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

“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.”

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

“This, too, will pass.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The human condition: lost in thought.”

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

“The foundation of greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.”

“Thinking is only a small aspect of consciousness. Thought cannot exist without consciousness, but consciousness does not need thought”

“The moment you realize you are not present, you are present. Whenever you are able to observe your mind, you are no longer trapped in it. Another factor has come in, something that is not of the mind: the witnessing presence.”

“Teachings that pointed the way beyond the dysfunction of the human mind, the way out of the collective insanity, were distorted and became themselves part of the insanity.
And so religions, to a large extent, became divisive rather than unifying forces. Instead of bringing about an ending of violence and hatred through a realization of the fundamental oneness of all life, they brought more violence and hatred, more divisions between people as well as between different religions and even within the same religion.”

“You say, “I want to know myself.” You are the I. You are the knowing. You are the consciousness through which everything is known and that cannot know itself. It is itself. There is nothing to know beyond that. And yet all knowing arises out of it. The “I” cannot make itself into an object of knowledge, of consciousness.
So you cannot become an object to yourself. That is the very reason the illusion of egoic identity arose because mentally you made yourself into an object. “That's me,” you say, and then you begin to have a relationship with yourself and tell others and yourself your story.”

“You cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the Now.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“The past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation. … Both are illusions.”

“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.”

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

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

“All problems are illusions of the mind.”

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”

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

“When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life.”

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

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

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

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

“If not now, when?”

“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.”

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

“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.”