Some people think to see God with their eyes as they would se a cow, and they expect to love him as they would love a cow. This thou lovest for its milk and for its cheese: for its profit to thyself. Even so do they who love God with an eye to outward riches or interior consolation, not rightly loving God but their own personal advantage. I trow that any object thou shalt set before they mind, except God in himself, how good soever it may be, is nothing but a barrier to the absolute truth.Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260-ca. 1327/8), sermon 16b, “Quasi vas auri solidum” (Ecclus. 50.9), as translated in Franz Pfeiffer, The Works of Meister Eckhart (Kila [MT] : Kessinger, n.d.), pp. 52f. (Google Books link).
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