The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake. — Meister Eckhart
—What lingers after this line?
Value of Taking Action
This quote emphasizes the importance of action over hesitation. It suggests that doing something, even if it leads to mistakes, is more beneficial than doing nothing at all.
Growth Through Mistakes
It highlights that mistakes are a natural part of growth and learning. While taking the wrong step may have consequences, inaction often leads to missed opportunities and stagnation.
Overcoming Fear of Failure
The statement encourages overcoming the fear of failure. It implies that the fear of making mistakes should not prevent one from taking initiative or pursuing goals.
The Cost of Missed Opportunities
Inaction often leads to regret over missed chances or unrealized potential. This quote serves as a reminder that doing nothing might lead to greater long-term losses than a temporary misstep.
Philosophical Perspective
Attributed to Meister Eckhart, a German theologian and philosopher, this statement reflects his focus on active engagement with life and the spiritual journey. His teachings often revolved around inner action and taking steps toward transformation.
One-minute reflection
What feeling does this quote bring up for you?
Related Quotes
6 selectedWhen you buy something, you are buying it with the time of your life. — José Mujica
José Mujica
José Mujica’s line reframes money as something more intimate than currency: it is time, captured and converted into wages. When you buy an object, you are not merely exchanging numbers on a receipt; you are trading the h...
Read full interpretation →Most decisions should be made with about 70% of the information you wish you had. - Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos’s observation challenges a common instinct: to delay decisions until we feel fully informed. Yet in fast-moving environments, the pursuit of perfect clarity often becomes a hidden cost—opportunities close, com...
Read full interpretation →You must train day and night in order to make decisions. — Miyamoto Musashi
Miyamoto Musashi
Miyamoto Musashi’s line compresses a lifetime of martial experience into a single principle: sound decisions are not improvised—they are earned. When he says you must train “day and night,” he points to a kind of prepara...
Read full interpretation →The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say 'no' to almost everything. — Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett
Buffett’s line reframes success as the art of subtraction rather than accumulation. Many capable people become “successful” by taking on more projects, more meetings, and more opportunities, yet that very breadth can dif...
Read full interpretation →The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. — Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau’s line quietly overturns a common assumption: that the price of something is whatever appears on a tag. Instead, he asks us to translate every purchase into the time, energy, and attention required to obtain it.
Read full interpretation →Polish your mind daily; a clear mirror shows the next right move — Confucius
Confucius
Confucius frames the mind as a mirror: when it is clean, it reflects reality without distortion, making the “next right move” easier to recognize. In this view, wisdom is less about sudden inspiration and more about remo...
Read full interpretation →More From Author
More from Meister Eckhart →Act, and God will act. — Meister Eckhart
“Act, and God will act” distills Meister Eckhart’s mystical theology into a compact challenge. Rather than picturing a passive believer waiting for a distant deity to intervene, Eckhart reverses the sequence: human initi...
Read full interpretation →Believe in the magic of beginnings. — Meister Eckhart
This quote encourages individuals to embrace new opportunities and beginnings with an open heart and mind. It highlights the potential and promise inherent in starting something new.
Read full interpretation →Affliction is the soil of compassion. — Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart’s evocative metaphor—'Affliction is the soil of compassion'—invites us to see hardship as the groundwork where empathy takes root. By likening affliction to fertile soil, Eckhart suggests that only throug...
Read full interpretation →What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action. — Meister Eckhart
Meister Eckhart’s vivid metaphor begins with the act of planting in the ‘soil’ of contemplation. This image invites us to view our inner life as fertile ground, ready for intentional thought and deep reflection.
Read full interpretation →