quotes about Essence
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Books are the basis; purity is the force; preaching is the essence; utility is the principle.
-- A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada -
History is a great deal closer to poetry than is generally realised: in truth, I think, it is in essence the same.
-- A. L. RowseSource : A. L. Rowse (2016). “The Use of History”, p.45, Routledge
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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.
-- A. Philip Randolph -
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At its core, meditation is about touching the spiritual essence that exists within us all. Our spiritual essence is not something that we create through meditation it's already there, deep within, behind all the barriers, patiently waiting for us to recognize it.
-- Aaron Hoopes -
Democracy can be sustained and developed only by people who understand its essence.
-- Abdurrahman Wahid -
Patience is the essence of clicking great Photographs!!
-- Abhijeet Sawant -
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Straight away, remove yourself from the field of spiritual progression , stay away from contemplation and skillful discourse, do not do research or meditate on the divinities, and stop concentrating and reciting textbooks! Tell me, what is the absolute nature of reality which allows no room for doubt? Listen carefully! Stop holding on to this or that, inhabit your true absolute nature, and peacefully enjoy the essence of what it is to be alive!
-- Abhinavagupta -
growth requires purposeful division. Responsible dissent is the essence of democracy.
-- Abigail McCarthy -
The essence of man is not what he is, but in what he is able to be.
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
No state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union. Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
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The spiritual life is part of the human essence. It is a defining characteristic of human nature, without which human nature is not fully human.
-- Abraham MaslowSource : Hung-Min Chiang, Abraham Harold Maslow (1969). “The healthy personality: readings”
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Linguine linguistics that left my verbal essence saucy, Send a message, leave you sleepin' next to headless horsey.
-- Action Bronson -
The field is a halfway house, halfway between the detail of those intimately known places and the ignorance of a landscape view ... The essence of a field is that the cultural accommodates the natural there. The human being makes room for and makes use of those organisms that are not him. In that way the field is a poem to symbiosis, and a human contract with the natural.
-- Adam Nicolson -
It's not written in the Constitution or anything else.... Congress, just out of the clear blue sky, said the airwaves belong to the people, which means, in essence, that it belongs to Congress.
-- Adrian Cronauer -
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The essence of humor is that it should be unexpected, that it should embody an element of surprise, that it should startle us out of that reasonable gravity which, after all, must be our habitual frame of mind.
-- Agnes RepplierSource : Agnes Repplier (2015). “Americans and Others”, p.21, Sheba Blake Publishing
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Spiritually, life is a festival, a celebration. Joy is of the essence of life;
-- AgniveshSource : Agnivesh's Right Livelihood Award Acceptance Speech, www.rightlivelihoodaward.org. December 31, 2004.
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The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him.
-- Aiden Wilson Tozer -
I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.
-- Aime Cesaire -
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Just as the grammarian makes one study grammar, A Buddha teaches according to the tolerance of his students; Some he urges to refrain from sins, others to do good, Some to rely on dualism, other on non-dualism; And to some he teaches the profound, The terrifying, the practice of enlightenment, Whose essence is emptiness that is compassion
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna -
My acts are irrevocable Because they have no essence... Where are the doers of deeds Absent among their conditions? Imagine a magician Who creates a creature Who creates other creatures. Acts I perform are creatures Who create others.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna -
All philosophies are mental fabrications. There has never been a single doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things.
-- Akkineni Nagarjuna -
Global warming pollution, indeed all pollution, is now described by economists as an "externality." This absurd label means, in essence: we don't to keep track of this stuff so let's pretend it doesn't exist.
-- Al Gore -
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The essence of knowledge is to know what obedience and worship are -Abu Hamid al
-- Al-Ghazali -
Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.
-- Alain de Botton -
When we surrender moral government to the courts, we have surrendered the very essence of freedom, we have surrendered its only real meaning--and we will not be free again until we get it back.
-- Alan Keyes -
The essence of sin is arrogance; the essence of salvation is submission.
-- Alan Redpath -
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Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.
-- Albert Camus -
The society of merchants can be defined as a society in which things disappear in favor of signs. When a ruling class measures its fortunes, not by the acre of land or the ingot of gold, but by the number of figures corresponding ideally to a certain number of exchange operations, it thereby condemns itself to setting a certain kind of humbug at the center of its experience and its universe. A society founded on signs is, in its essence, an artificial society in which man's carnal truth is handled as something artificial.
-- Albert Camus -
There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up.
-- Albert Camus -
We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming - or damning.
-- Albert Ellis -
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....the designer must be able to see - make a concentrated effort to absorb the essence of the project. Seeing is a very difficult thing to do. Most people "look" at a lot of thing but never "see" anything. Looking is emotional; seeing is an intellectual process.
-- Albert Hadley -
The essence of interior design will always be about people and how they live.
-- Albert Hadley -
There are great truths at the foundation of Freemasonry, truths which it is its mission to teach and which is constituting the very essence of, that sublime system which gives the venerable institution its peculiar identity as a science of morality, and it behooves every disciple diligently to ponder and inwardly digest.
-- Albert Pike -
The elemental fact, present in our consciousness every moment of our existence, is: I am life that wills to live, in the midst of life that wills to live.... The essence of the humane spirit is: Preserve life, promote life, help life to achieve its highest destiny. The essence of Evil is: Destroy life, harm life, hamper the development of life
-- Albert Schweitzer -
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To an Earthkeeper, love is not a feeling or something your barter with. Love is the essence of who you are, and it radiates from you as a brilliant aura: You become love, practice fearlessness, and attain enlightenment.
-- Alberto VilloldoSource : FaceBook post by Alberto Villoldo from Mar 14, 2014
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The True Self is infinite. It knows no boundaries. Pure essence. Pure light. Engulfing the mind, the soul, the body, the invisible real, with its radiance.
-- Alberto Villoldo -
Everything in the world was about creativity: belief and creation. Storytelling was the essence of both.
-- Alethea KontisSource : Alethea Kontis (2012). “Enchanted”, p.121, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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Love is the essence of the holiness of the Church.
-- Alexander SchmemannSource : Alexander Schmemann (1988). “The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom”, p.137, St Vladimir's Seminary Press
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Hypocrisy is the essence of snobbery, but all snobbery is about the problem of belonging.
-- Alexander Theroux -
And then, what is grace? Grace is love. But grace is not love simply, and purely, and alone. Grace and love are, in their innermost essence, one and the same thing.
-- Alexander WhyteSource : Alexander Whyte (1903). “The apostle Paul”
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Some third person decides your fate: this is the whole essence of bureaucracy.
-- Alexandra Kollontai -
Strip away all the assumptions about what competition is supposed to do, all the claims in its behalf that we accept and repeat reflexively. What you have left is the essence of the concept: mutually exclusive goal attainment (MEGA). One person succeeds only if another does not. From this uncluttered perspective, it seems clear right away that something is drastically wrong with such an arrangement. How can we do our best when we are spending our energies trying to make others lose--and fearing that they will make us lose?
-- Alfie Kohn -
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Silence... is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all.
-- Alfred Brendel -
A calm despair, without angry convulsions or reproaches directed at heaven, is the essence of wisdom.
-- Alfred de VignySource : "Journal d'un poète"by Alfred de Vigny, (p. 32), 1949.
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There is no such thing as a dumb poet or a handless painter. The essence of an artist is that he should be articulate.
-- Algernon Charles Swinburne -
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In golf, humiliations are the essence of the game.
-- Alistair Cooke -
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property were just what Aristotle did not talk about. They are the conditions of happiness; but the essence of happiness, according to Aristotle, is virtue. So the moderns decided to deal with the conditions and to let happiness take care of itself.
-- Allan BloomSource : Ibn Warraq (2013). “Why the West is Best: A Muslim Apostate's Defense of Liberal Democracy”, p.15, Encounter Books
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My intention was to grapple with the metaphysical meaning behind Scheherazade and present that meaning in its essence. Scheherazade is the symbol of the savior. She weaves tales not to save her own life, but to save humanity from its unending retributive response to injury.
-- Alonzo KingSource : "Alonzo King: Dancing Between the Lines". Interview with Fisher Jack, www.eurweb.com. June 17, 2013.
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The very essence of architecture consists of a variety and development reminiscent of natural organic life. This is the only true style in architecture
-- Alvar AaltoSource : "Biography/ Mini Bio". www.imdb.com.
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I've realized that the world is, in essence, full of banana peels - loaded with things that may unwittingly trip an internal wire in my mind, opening a floodgate of fears without warning.
-- Amanda LindhoutSource : Amanda Lindhout, Sara Corbett (2013). “A House in the Sky: A Memoir”, p.365, Simon and Schuster
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At the end of life, at the end of YOUR life, what essence emerges? What have you filled the world with? In remembering you, what words will others choose?
-- Amy Krouse Rosenthal -
I love your silences, they are like mine. You are the only being before whom I am not distressed by my own silences. You have a vehement silence, one feels it is charged with essences, it is a strangely alive silence, like a trap open over a well, from which one can hear the secret murmur of the earth itself.
-- Anais Nin -
I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.
-- Anatole FranceSource : Anatole France (1920). “The garden of Epicurus”
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The essence of oppression is that one is defined from the outside by those who define themselves as superior by criteria of their own choice.
-- Andrea Dworkin -
Liberalization and democratization are in essence counter-revolution.
-- Andrei GrechkoSource : "Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse". Book by Stephen Kotkin, p. 58, 2001.
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MORE CONSISTENTLY THAN EVER I WAS TRYING TO MAKE PEOPLE BELIEVE THAT CINEMA AS AN INSTRUMENT OF ART HAS ITS OWN POSSIBILITIES WHICH ARE EQUAL TO THOSE OF PROSE. I WANTED TO DEMONSTRATE HOW CINEMA IS ABLE TO OBSERVE LIFE, WITHOUT INTERFERING, CRUDELY OR OBVIOUSLY, WITH ITS CONTINUITY. FOR THAT IS WHERE I SEE THE POETIC ESSENCE OF CINEMA.
-- Andrei Tarkovsky -
It's a thrilling world, and people really like stories about secrets, which is the essence of a spy drama.
-- Andrew ScottSource : Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.
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That, in essence, is the catastrophe of suicide for those who survive: not only the loss of someone, but the loss of the chance to persuade that person to act differently, the loss of the chance to connect.
-- Andrew Solomon -
The essence of drawing is the line exploring space.
-- Andy Goldsworthy -
Everything in tennis is so neat and nice but boxing has sport down to its essence; it is very pure and I like that.
-- Andy Murray -
You can get the true essence of New Yorkers by just hanging out in Central Park
-- Andy Roddick -
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Freedom is the very essence of our economy and society. Without freedom the human mind is prevented from unleashing its creative force. But what is also clear is that this freedom does not stand alone. It is freedom in responsibility and freedom to exercise responsibility.
-- Angela MerkelSource : Rudolf Rocker (2004). “Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice”, p.18, AK Press
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We're saying this to both countries: We want a two-state solution. We want a Jewish state of Israel and alongside a independent Palestinian state. Unilateral measures are not helping at all to bring about this cause, and we agree that we wish to cooperate very closely on this, because as we both say, time is of the essence.
-- Angela Merkel -
When we dance we touch the essence of who we are and experience the unity between spirit and matter.
-- Angeles ArrienSource : Angeles Arrien (1993). “The four-fold way”
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I understood that at the core, our essence is made of pure love. We are pure love-every single one of us. How can we not be, if we come from the Whole and return to it? I knew that realizing this meant never being afraid of who we are. Therefore, being love and being our true self is one and the same thing!
-- Anita MoorjaniSource : FaceBook post by Anita Moorjani from May 06, 2013
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the essence of vulgarity seemed to lie in the pretence at being or the attempt to be, something that one really was not, with the resulting lack of ease and dignity and taste.
-- Ann BridgeSource : Ann Bridge (2013). “Singing Waters”, p.9, A&C Black
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Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.
-- Ann Voskamp -
She represented the distilled essence of the battle between the sexes.
-- Anne EdwardsSource : Anne Edwards (1988). “A Remarkable Woman: A Biography of Katharine Hepburn”, Pocket
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Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.
-- Anne Morrow LindberghSource : Anne Morrow Lindbergh (2002). “Wisdom from Gift from the Sea”, p.28, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.
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The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh -
Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves; that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships.
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh -
Re-telling the Christian story is the essence of my vocation. That has been going on since the Evangelists in one form or another.
-- Anne Rice -
If you look at the true essence of the Black Panthers, they were more of a community protection group.
-- Anthony Mackie -
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Advertising is the very essence of democracy.
-- Anton Chekhov -
Just as I shall lie alone in the grave, so, in essence, do I live alone.
-- Anton Chekhov -
The essence of leadership is being able to see the iceberg before it hits the Titanic.
-- Arianna Huffington -
Only by being suspended aloft, by dangling my mind in the heavens and mingling my rare thought with the ethereal air, could I ever achieve strict scientific accuracy in my survey of the vast empyrean. Had I pursued my inquiries from down there on the ground, my data would be worthless. The earth, you see, pulls down the delicate essence of thought to its own gross level.
-- Aristophanes -
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What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.
-- Aristotle -
The soul is the cause or source of the living body. The terms cause and source have many senses. But the soul is the cause of its body alike in all three senses which we explicitly recognize. It is (a) the source or origin of movement, it is (b) the end, it is (c) the essence of the whole living body.
-- Aristotle -
The essence of a democracy is a free electorate.
-- Arlen Specter -
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No being can be what he is unless he is putting his essence into action in his field.
-- Arnold J. Toynbee -
How would I behave in a situation that caused me to summon the essence of my character? The tragedy inspired me to test myself. I wanted to reveal to myself who I was: the kind of person who died, or the kind of person who overcame circumstances to help himself and others
-- Aron RalstonSource : Aron Ralston (2011). “127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place”, p.74, Simon and Schuster
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The student should bear in mind that the very essence of consciousness is constantly to identify itself with the Not-Self, and as constantly to re-assert itself by rejecting the Not-Self. Consciousness, in fact, consists of this alternating assertion and negation - "I am this" - "I am not this." Hence consciousness is, and causes in matter, the attracting and repelling that we call a vibration.
-- Arthur E. Powell -
Anyone can have a good day. The question is what do you do on a bad day. That's when you're being tested. In a very tangible sense, a bad day shows your innermost essence more than a good day.
-- Arthur Golden -
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Wit is something more than a gymnastic trick of the intellect; true wit implies a beam of thought into the essence of a question, a flash that lights up a situation. Wit suggests the delicate but delightful play of a rapier in the hands of a master.
-- Arthur LynchSource : Arthur Lynch (1921). “Moods of Life: Popular Psychological Studies of Affairs of Every Day”
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If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer -
Poverty and slavery are thus only two forms ofthe same thing, the essence of which is that a man's energies are expended for the most part not on his own behalf but on that of others.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer -
Competition is pretty much the essence of everything, it gives humans drive.
-- Ashton Eaton -
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Vulnerability is the essence of romance. It's the art of being uncalculated, the willingness to look foolish, the courage to say, 'This is me, and I'm interested in you enough to show you my flaws with the hope that you may embrace me for all that I am but, more important, all that I am not.'
-- Ashton KutcherSource : "Has Texting Killed Romance?" by Ashton Kutcher, www.harpersbazaar.com. December 8, 2010.
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What I most cherish is the observation of the movement of colors. Only in this have I found the laws of those simultaneous and complementary color contrasts that nourish the actual rhythm of my vision. In this I find the actual essence, an essence which is not born out of an a priori system or theory.
-- August Macke -
The statistical method is required in the interpretation of figures which are at the mercy of numerous influences, and its object is to determine whether individual influences can be isolated and their effects measured. The essence of the method lies in the determination that we are really comparing like with like, and that we have not overlooked a relevant factor which is present in Group A and absent from Group B. The variability of human beings in their illnesses and in their reactions to them is a fundamental reason for the planned clinical trial and not against it.
-- Austin Bradford Hill -
As to the mental essence, we find it in infants devoid of every mental form.
-- Avicenna -
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That whose existence is necessary must necessarily be one essence.
-- Avicenna -
God, the supreme being, is neither circumscribed by space, nor touched by time; he cannot be found in a particular direction, and his essence cannot change. The secret conversation is thus entirely spiritual; it is a direct encounter between God and the soul, abstracted from all material constraints.
-- Avicenna -
Before all else, Protestantism is, in its very essence, an appeal from all other authority to the divine authority of Holy Scripture
-- B. B. Warfield -
Religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules, it ceases to be a religion, as it kills responsibility which is an essence of the true religious act.
-- B. R. Ambedkar -