Essence quotes
1.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"I think that where I've gotten frustrated during the course of my presidency has never been because I was getting pushed too hard by activists to see the justness of a cause or the essence of an issue."
"Once there is a certain degree of Presence, of still and alert attention in human beings' perceptions, they can sense the divine life essence, the one indwelling consciousness or spirit in every creature, every life-form, recognize it as one with their own essence and so love it as themselves. Until this happens, however, most humans see only the outer forms, unaware of the inner essence, just as they are unaware of their own essence and identify only with their own physical and psychological form."
"Space really means the level of awareness or presence, not thinking. So, can you look at your partner and not think? Two conscious beings realize that the essence of the relationship is the space in it. Even when there is an egoic overlay, it is not too dense or heavy for you to sense the essence underneath it. You don't need to react to the egoic overlay. When you don't react to it you don't strengthen it."
"When great loss happens - deaths close to you or your own approaching death - this is an opportunity for stepping completely out of identification with form and realizing the essence of who you are, or that the essence of anyone who is suffering or dying is beyond death."
"Just as without silence there could be no sound, you would not exist without the vital formless dimension that is the essence of who you are."
"God is beyond all the forms of life, but also indwells every form of life as their essence. God is both beyond and within."
"When you are aware of space, you are not really aware of anything, except awareness itself - the inner space of consciousness. Through you, the universe is becoming aware of itself! Just as space enables all things to exist and just as without silence there could be no sound, you would not exist without the vital formless dimension that is the essence of who you are."
"And whenever you feel that essence in another, you also feel it in yourself."
"Many things in your life matter, but only one thing matters absolutely.. It is finding the essence of who you are."
"Because we all carry the Truth within us as our essence, we recognize it immediately."
"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form" states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness."
"The most important healing - realizing who you are. The healing on the outer level is fine, but it's not the essence of healing."
"Nothing in its essence is one way or the other."
"Everything is fresh, the essence of realization."
"Unless we realize that the essence of Nazism is also an attempt to solve a universal problem of Western civilization - that of the industrial society - and that the basic principles on which the Nazis base this attempt are also in no way confined to Germany, we do not know what we fight for or what we fight against... The war is being fought for the structure of industrial society - its basic principles, its purposes, and its institutions."
"Writing an informative yet compact thriller is a lot like making maple sugar candy. You have to tap hundreds of trees - boil vats and vats of raw sap - evaporate the water - and keep boiling until you've distilled a tiny nugget that encapsulates the essence."
"growth requires purposeful division. Responsible dissent is the essence of democracy."
"Knowledge is the distilled essence of our institutions, corroborated by experience."
"Richard is a very sexy man. He's got that sort of jungle essence that one can sense." (on Richard Burton)"
"To deceive gracefully is the very essence of social life. One must start by deceiving oneself, and make a lifelong practice of deceiving others; if one does it well enough, in time one might even become an artist, the greatest illusionists of all."
