10 Life-Changing The Power of Now Quotes from Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle’s book “The Power of Now” is easily one of the best books on how to achieve mindfulness and, as a result, achieve inner peace and true happiness.  Very different from many books about the subject of mindfulness and happiness, this book has only one very focused message which is to live in the present moment and the present moment only, as the past is gone and the future doesn’t exist yet.  In order to do that, we will need to be aware that your mind can be divided into two parts: the observing mind and the thinking mind.  When you can start using your observing mind to observe what your thinking mind is doing, you would realize that a lot of the thinking is due to emotions and reactions to things surrounding you.  If you can start observing negative things, you can just let the thoughts flow and understand they are automatic reactions.  That’s the beginning of finding inner peace and true happiness.  That’s mindfulness.  

In “The Power of Now”, there are so many great and powerful quotes by Eckhart Tolle.  The following is a list of some of the best.

“When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it. All else is madness.”

This Eckhart Tolle quote is one of the important quotes that teaches people the best approach for dealing with negative situations.  First, don’t complain.  Then you only have three options and three options only.  You can leave the situation; you can change the situation; or you can accept it.  Which one to choose depends on your strength and the situation.  For example, if you are trying to read a book quietly in a cafe and the person besides you is making annoying noise, leaving the situation by changing to another seat is probably a good way to handle the situation.   However, if there are no other empty seats, you may want to change the situation by asking the person beside you to be more quiet.  If the person doesn’t listen and keeps making annoying noise, you may want to accept the situation and keep reading, knowing that it is probably the best available option already.  

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

“Now” is all we have.  The past is gone and we have no control over it now.  The future has not yet arrived and nothing is guaranteed.  We can’t say that we have zero control over the future.  We can definitely have goals.  But once those goals are set, we should have an action plan and then we should put the goals aside.  We then should focus our “now” on following the action plan, and not worry much about whether the progress will convert into the goal.  Remember, focusing on “now” doesn’t mean you are giving up the future or disrespecting your past.  

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

If you can be aware of your thoughts at the present moment, you would realize that “the past” has no control over your “now”.  What happened in the past might be one of the reasons for what is happening now, but what happened in the past has passed and it is irrelevant how much effort, money, or love you have spent.  The subject of economics has a word for it - “sunk cost”.  

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

In this era of social media, many people present their polished and fake selves on different social media platforms.  I am not saying that, decades ago, people don’t pretend or people don’t like to compare; I am saying that social media has 10 times this behavior.  Due to this outside force, people buy cars they can’t afford, get rich at any cost, and date the best looking people they don’t truly love.  They may eventually get a lot of things that look good to other people, but they fail to realize the source of true happiness - a present moment of inner peace.  

“Where there is anger there is always pain underneath.”

This above quote from “The Power of Now” is probably one of the most difficult things to apply to life.  When your partner gets really angry, can you realize the pain and have compassion?  

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”

A big part of the book “The Power of Now” is about learning to be aware of your thoughts.  But is being aware useful?  Yes, definitely.  If you are aware, you can realize what’s going on and you can choose to change.  At least you have a chance.  If you are not aware of the fact that you are having negative thoughts and their thoughts are dragging you down, you have zero chance for change.  

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

There are moments that simply suck in life.  It is what it is.  But you can realize that your negative thoughts about the negative situations are making you feel much worse, you may be able to stop entertaining your negative thoughts and make yourself feel better.  Most of the time, bad situations are not really that bad if you don’t have much thoughts about them. 

“This, too, will pass.”

The above Eckhart Tolle quote is so useful that you can almost use it as a mantra when you are in a negative situation that you feel like you can’t overcome.  Tell yourself that this too will pass, just like all the tough situations you have already experienced in the past.  

“The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity of sorts.”

When you see your friends getting trapped in negative thoughts about problems in a way that they almost seem like they are trying their best to keep the problems alive, you have to realize a big part of it is that their minds enjoy the identities they are having.  For example, some people may be unconsciously enjoying the identity of mistreated employees.  If they can observe their own thoughts, they would soon realize that it’s their own choice to stay in the company and their own choice to not look for another job.  They are addicted to their negative thoughts and they are not spending any effort in improving the situation.  

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

True happiness is joy and it comes from within.  Pleasure is a short burst of surface-level happiness and it comes from things outside you.