50+ Best Quotes from Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle

Quotes on Stillness and Your True Nature

"True intelligence operates silently. Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found."

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

"Stillness is your essential nature. What is stillness? The inner space or awareness in which the words on this page are being perceived and become thoughts. Without that awareness, there would be no perception, no thoughts, no world. You are that awareness, disguised as a person."

"Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form."

"Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions."

"All artists, whether they know it or not create from a place of inner stillness, a place of no mind."

"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. I Am."

"The truth is: you don't have a life, you are life."

"You don't 'have' a life, you 'are' life. The One Life, the one consciousness that pervades the entire universe and takes temporary form to experience itself as a stone or blade of grass, as an animal, a person, a star or a galaxy."

"Nothing that comes and goes is you."

Inspiring Quotes on the Present Moment from Stillness Speaks

"Whenever you are immersed in compulsive thinking, you are avoiding what is. You don't want to be where you are. Here, Now."

"On the surface it seems that the present moment is only one of many, many moments. Each day of your life appears to consist of thousands of moments where different things happen. Yet if you look more deeply, is there not only one moment, ever? Is life ever not this moment? This one moment, now, is the only thing you can never escape from."

"The one constant factor in your life. No matter what happens. No matter how much your life changes. One thing is certain. Its always now."

"Since there is no escape from the now, why not welcome it, become friendly with it."

"The present moment is all you ever have."

"Is there not only one moment, ever?"

"The stream of thinking has enormous momentum that can easily drag you along with it. Every thought pretends that it matters so much."

"Life is eternal."

"Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal."

"Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you."

Quotes on the Mind, Ego, and Emotions in Stillness Speaks

"Your unhappiness ultimately arises not from the circumstances of your life but from the conditioning of your mind."

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

"Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not 'yours,' not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you."

"You discover that a 'bored person' is not who you are. Boredom is simply a conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are you an angry, sad, or fearful person. Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not 'yours,' not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go."

"I am bored.' Who knows this? 'I am angry, sad, afraid.' Who knows this? You are the knowing, not the condition that is known."

"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, peace."

"The ego doesn't like to hear this, because if it cannot be reactive and righteous anymore, it will lose strength."

"Beware of your mind's tendency to construct a story around that loss in which you are assigned the role of victim."

"Fear, anger, resentment, or self-pity are the emotions that go with that role."

"Something inside you dies. You feel diminished in your sense of who you are. There may also be a certain disorientation. 'Without this...who am I?'"

Quotes on Nature and Relationships in the Book

"Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness."

"When you walk through a forest that has not been tamed and interfered with by man, you will see not only abundant life all around you, but you will also encounter fallen trees and decaying trunks, rotting leaves and decomposing matter at every step."

"Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover that the decomposing tree trunk and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life, but are full of life themselves."

"The playfulness and joy of a dog, its unconditional love and readiness to celebrate life at any moment often contrast sharply with the inner state of the dog's owner  -  depressed, anxious, burdened by problems, lost in thought, not present in the only place and only time there is: Here and Now."

"One wonders: living with this person, how does the dog manage to remain so sane, so joyous?"

"To know another human being in their essence, you don't really need to know anything about them  -  their past, their history, their story."

"How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships. Love does not want or fear anything."

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

"When you look at a tree and perceive its stillness, you become still yourself."

"Nature can bring you to the stillness. That is its gift to you."

Quotes on Acceptance, Suffering, and Transcendence

"Surrender comes when you no longer ask, 'Why is this happening to me?'"

"Jesus' words, 'Forgive them for they do not know what they do,' also apply to yourself."

"Throughout history humans have inflicted countless violent, cruel, and hurtful acts on each other, and continue to do so. Are they all to be condemned; are they all guilty? Or are those acts simply expressions of unconsciousness, an evolutionary stage that we are now growing out of?"

"Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you, no humility, no compassion."

"Accept that it is there. Don't deny or ignore the pain or the sadness that you feel. Accept that it is there."

"Can you face and accept that strange sense of emptiness? If you do, you may find that it is no longer a fearful place. You may be surprised to find peace emanating from it."

"Whenever death occurs, whenever a life form dissolves, God, the formless and unmanifested, shines through the opening left by the dissolving form."

"That is why the most sacred thing in life is death. That is why the peace of God can come to you through the contemplation and acceptance of death."

"Whenever any kind of deep loss occurs in your life  -  such as loss of possessions, your home, a close relationship; or loss of your reputation, job, or physical abilities  -  something inside you dies."

"When a form that you had unconsciously identified with as part of yourself leaves you or dissolves, that can be extremely painful. It leaves a hole, so to speak, in the fabric of your existence."