“The inner work is also divine, god-like and possessed of divine qualities in that, even if there were a thousand worlds, all creatures together would not amount to more than God on his own by so much as a whisker, and so I say, as I have already said, that the external work, its size and extent, its length and breadth, cannot increase the goodness of the inner work to any degree whatever, since this contains goodness in itself."

"Thus the outer work can never be minor, when the inner work is a major one, and the outer work can never be major or good when the inner work is a minor one and without value. The inner work always determines in itself all the dimensions of the outer work, its whole breadth and extent. The inner work receives and draws the whole of its being from nowhere but the heart and in the heart of God..."

— Meister Eckhart, The Book of Divine Consolations

"For truly, insofar as it is something external that prompts you to act, to that extent your works are dead, and even if it is God who prompts you to act from outside, then such works too are dead.

If your works are to be living works, then God must spur you to action from within, from your innermost part, if they are really to be alive. For that is where your own life is, and that is the sole place where you are truly alive."

—Meister Eckhart, Sermon 10