Quotes on Essence

As to the mental essence, we find it in infants devoid of every mental form.

So what I did on the field was the essence of what I am. Remember me like that.

Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.

You will pass through storms and heavy rains, and at times you will suffer defeat. The essence of the creative life, however, is not to give up in the face of defeat but to follow the rainbow that exists within your heart.

And whenever you feel that essence in another, you also feel it in yourself.

The essence of strategy is that you must set limits on what you're trying to accomplish.

When it's cold, water freezes into ice; when it's warm, ice melts into water. Similarly, when you are confused, essence freezes into mind; when you are enlightened, mind melts into essence.

The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor.

Accountability is the essence of democracy. If people do not know what their government is doing, they cannot be truly self-governing. The national security state assumes the government secrets are too important to be shared, that only those in the know can see classified information, that only the president has all the facts, that we must simply trust that our rulers of acting in our interest.

Engineers are not superhuman. They make mistakes in their assumptions, in their calculations, in their conclusions. That they make mistakes is forgivable; that they catch them is imperative. Thus it is the essence of modern engineering not only to be able to check one's own work but also to have one's work checked and to be able to check the work of others.

Ancient masters of excellence had a subtle essence, and a depth too profound to comprehend.

Just as I shall lie alone in the grave, so, in essence, do I live alone.

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale.

I don’t deny that there can be an element of escapism in mountaineering, but this should never overshadow its real essence, which is not escape but victory over your own human frailty.

Conquering evil, not the opponent, is the essence of swordsmanship.

Any combining, mixing, adding, diluting, exploiting, vulgarizing, or popularizing of abstract art deprives art of its essence and depraves the artist's artistic consciousness. Art is free, but it is not a free-for-all.

The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self. Adults work to finish a task, but the child works in order to grow, and is working to create the adult, the person that is to be. Such experience is not just play... it is work he must do in order to grow up.

The purposeful destruction of information is the essence of intelligent work.

The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self.

As animals, we walk the earth. As bearers of divine essence, we are among the stars. As human beings, we are caught in the middle, seeking to reconcile the paradox of how to make our way upon earth while striving for something more permanent and more profound.

The essence of government is control, or the attempt to control.