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2025 is the very first year I am actually making a vision board, and that’s because I plan to be very intentional about everything I do this year. 

At the top of my list was checking out books that are new to me, as well as some popular ones I hadn’t gotten to yet and A New Earth was on that list.

When I saw that this book had been chosen as Oprah’s Book Club pick (again) for January 2025, it felt like a clear sign.

It’s truly perfect in every way. 

If you’re not familiar, this is a spirituality book that focuses on the idea of humans transcending the ego’s attachment to material possessions and cultivating a deeper, more intentional understanding of ourselves and our place in the universe.

I know this might sound a bit overwhelming, and if I’m being very honest, this is definitely the kind of book you need to read in bits and pieces. 

It’s not something you can rush through in one sitting – every sentence feels like it has hidden layers of meaning, and it really makes you stop and think.

I’m slowly making my way through the book, and in this post, I’ve collected some of my favorite quotes from A New Earth that I think anyone who has read it — or is even mildly curious about it – will absolutely enjoy. 

I’ll also write a full review (or at least a short one) once I’ve finished reading, which should be in a few days.

Most Insightful Quotes from A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

1. “Words reduce reality to something the human mind can grasp, which isn’t very much.”

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

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

4. “Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”

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

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

7. “Each person’s life – each lifeform, in fact – represents a world, a unique way in which the universe experiences itself.”

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

9. “Man made God in his own image.”

10. “In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.”

11. “There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. Being right is identification with a mental position—a perspective, an opinion, a judgment, a story. For you to be right, of course, you need someone else to be wrong, and so the ego loves to make wrong in order to be right.”

12. “Life isn’t as serious as my mind makes it out to be.”

13. “Whenever you become anxious or stressed, outer purpose has taken over, and you’ve lost sight of your inner purpose. You have forgotten that your state of consciousness is primary, all else secondary.”

14. “There are two ways of being unhappy. Not getting what you want is one. Getting what you want is the other.”

15. “Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.”

16. “Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.”

17. “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.”

18. “Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”

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

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

21. “When you don’t cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought.”

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

23. “Give up defining yourself—to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”

24. “If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.”

25. “Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.”

26. “To recognize one’s own insanity is, of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence.”

27. “When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn’t work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form—or a species—will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap.”

28. “Defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself.”

29. “All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.”

30. “Every complaint is a little story the mind makes up that you completely believe in.”

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

32. “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.”

33. “The brain does not create consciousness, but consciousness created the brain, the most complex physical form on Earth, for its expression.”

34. “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.”

35. “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.”

36. “There is only one perpetrator of evil on the planet: human unconsciousness. That realization is true forgiveness. With forgiveness, your victim identity dissolves, and your true power emerges—the power of Presence. Instead of blaming the darkness, you bring in the light.”

37. “Nothing has 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?”

38. “If you are content with being nobody in particular, content not to stand out, you align yourself with the power of the universe. What looks like weakness to the ego is, in fact, the only true strength.”

39. “You have so much to learn from your enemies.”

40. “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.”

41. “Don’t seek happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.”

42. “The more shared past there is in a relationship, the more present you need to be.”

43. “Authentic human interactions become impossible when you lose yourself in a role.”

44. “A significant portion of the Earth’s population will soon recognize, if they haven’t already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.”

45. “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.”

46. “In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.”

47. “Life isn’t as serious as my mind makes it out to be.”

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

49. “There are two ways of being unhappy. Not getting what you want is one. Getting what you want is the other.”

50. “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation, but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking.”

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If you’ve read this book, I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Let me know in the comments what you loved (or didn’t love) about it. 

And don’t forget to check out the related post for quotes from other amazing books I’ve been reading and enjoying lately!