Quotes about essential (2141 quotes, page 21)

“I posit myself as individual, in opposition to another individual, by ascribing to myself a sphere for my freedom, from which I exclude the other, and by ascribing to him a sphere, from which I exclude myself — of course, only in the thinking of a fact and by virtue of this fact. Hence, I have posited myself as free a side of him without danger to the possibility of his freedom. Through this positing of my freedom I have determined myself; to be free constitutes my essential character. But what does to be free mean? Evidently to be able to carry out the conceptions of acts I may entertain. But the carrying out always follows the conception, and the perception of the desired product of my causality is always — in relation to its first conception — a matter of the future. Freedom is therefore always posited in the future; and if it is to constitute the character of a being, it is posited for all the future of the individual; is posited in the future as far as the individual himself is posited in the future.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher

Source: The Science of Rights 1796, P. 77

Future , Thinking , Relation ships , Freedom

“The modern world has largely forgotten, and our educational systems ignore, the primary importance, in the evolution of man, of various types of symbolic communication—the communication embodied in gesture, ritual, dance, music myth, and poetic metaphor. All these modes of expression constitute a language of feeling, a non-discursive form of thought, absolutely essential to our individual development and to the unity of social life.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

Selected Writings—Poetry and Criticism. (1964).
Other Quotes

Communication , Music , Dance , World

“The essential complement to the path-breaking book Competitive Strategy, Michael E. Porter’s Competitive Advantage explores the underpinnings of competitive advantage in the individual firm.”

Michael E. Porter (1947) American engineer and economist

Competitive Advantage, 1985

Books

“We his grand-children were playing with toy guns, using jowar grains as ammunition. One grain hit the Vice- President near the eye. He told us sternly then how it was essential for him to avoid injuries to be able to carry out his various duties.”

Basappa Danappa Jatti (1912–2002) Indian politician

Simple man with a lofty office

Children

“He was a Gandhian in ideology, essentially cosmopolitan in outlook, truly Indian in culture, a poet at heart and an activist in thoughts.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

By R.K. Jain
Full Court Reference in Memory of The Late Justice M. Hidayatullah

Heart

“The generally accepted interpretation of Jagadish Chandra’s scientific activities is that he had essentially the biologist’s conception of Nature; lack of opportunities for biological studies while as a student in Calcutta and later lack of any teaching post in biology, induced Jagadish Chandra to take up the post of teacher in physics.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

By D.M. Bose
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara

Teachers , Study , Nature

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”

Eric Holder (1951) 82nd Attorney General of the United States

Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race. It is an issue we have never been at ease with and given our nation’s history this is in some ways understandable. And yet, if we are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.
February 18, 2009.
Remarks at the Department of Justice African American History Month Program. http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090218.html
2000s

Way

“The danger, I suppose, of using pseudonyms is that it interferes with that desirable process—the unification of the personality. Goethe said that even the writing of plays, dividing the imagination up among different fictional personalities, damaged what he valued — the mind’s wholeness. I wonder what he meant exactly, since he also described his mode of thinking as imagined conversations with various people. Maybe the pseudonyms, like other personalities conjured up in a dramatic work, can be a preliminary stage of identifying and exploring new parts of yourself. Then the next stage would be to incorporate them in the unifying process. Accept responsibility for them. Maybe that’s what Yeats meant by seeking his opposite. The great Sufi master Ibn el-Arabi described the essential method of spiritual advancement as an inner conversation with the personalities that seem to exist beyond what you regard as your own limits... getting those personalities to tell you what you did not know, or what you could not easily conceive of within your habitual limits. This is commonplace in some therapies, of course.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

The Paris Review interview

Imagination , Personality , People , Thinking

“The thing that distinguishes social systems from physical or even biological systems is their incomparable (and embarrassing) richness in special cases. Generalizations in the social sciences are mere pathways which lead through a riotous forest of individual trees, each a species unto itself. The social scientist who loses this sense of the essential individuality and uniqueness of each case is all too likely to make a solemn scientific ass of himself, especially if he thinks that his faceless generalizations are the equivalents of the rich variety of the world.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Boulding (1958) "Evidences for an Administrative Science: A review of the Administrative Science Quarterly, volumes 1 and 2". In Administrative Science Quarterly. vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 14
1950s

Tree , Thinking , Sense , World

“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit — the cosmos? The universe would be incomplete without man; but it would also be incomplete without the smallest transmicroscopic creature that dwells beyond our conceitful eyes and knowledge. From the dust of the earth, from the common elementary fund, the Creator has made Homo sapiens.”

John Muir book A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

From the same material he has made every other creature, however noxious and insignificant to us. They are earth-born companions and our fellow mortals. … This star, our own good earth, made many a successful journey around the heavens ere man was made, and whole kingdoms of creatures enjoyed existence and returned to dust ere man appeared to claim them. After human beings have also played their part in Creation's plan, they too may disappear without any general burning or extraordinary commotion whatever.
Source: A Thousand-Mile Walk To the Gulf, 1916, chapter 6: Cedar Keys, pages 160-161

Pain , Universe , Knowledge , Making love

“If sin must be kept alive, then hell must be kept alive; but while I regard the smallest sin as infinitely loathsome, I do not believe that any being, never good enough to see the essential ugliness of sin, could sin so as to deserve such punishment. I am not now, however, dealing with the question of the duration of punishment, but with the idea of punishment itself; and would only say in passing, that the notion that a creature born imperfect, nay, born with impulses to evil not of his own generating, and which he could not help having, a creature to whom the true face of God was never presented, and by whom it never could have been seen, should be thus condemned, is as loathsome a lie against God as could find place in heart too undeveloped to understand what justice is, and too low to look up into the face of Jesus.”

George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish journalist, novelist

From ‘’Justice’’ in Unspoken Sermons Series III (1889)

God , Hell , Justice , Understanding

“This is not a new idea; this is the idea of the age of reason. This is the philosophy that guided the men who made the democracy that we live under. The idea that no one really knew how to run a government led to the idea that we should arrange a system by which new ideas could be developed, tried out, and tossed out if necessary, with more new ideas brought in — a trial and error system. This method was a result of the fact that science was already showing itself to be a successful venture at the end of the eighteenth century. Even then it was clear to socially minded people that the openness of possibilities was an opportunity, and that doubt and discussion were essential to progress into the unknown. If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

The Value of Science (1955)

Democracy , Success , People , Problem

“Then there is Dick Cheney, who essentially said that if Kerry is voted in as president, terrorism will hit America again. How is that? Is Cheney going to make some calls? Apparently he has the hook up.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Weblog

Making love

“In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the injustice -- for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy or not -- involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it; modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/230/mode/1up pp. 230-233

Fight , Love , Fear , Problem

“Alike in the highest regions of speculation and in the smaller practical concerns of daily life, her mind was the same perfect instrument, piercing to the very heart and marrow of the matter; always seizing the essential idea or principle. The same exactness and rapidity of operation, pervading as it did her sensitive as well as her mental faculties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, in the times when such a carrière was open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her intellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met with in life.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/186/mode/1up pp. 186-187

Nature , Women , Time , Perfection

“It might also mean greater business and government support for maternity and paternity leave and day care so that the middle class and the poor can get some of the educational benefits that the early academic intervention of the rich provides their children. Fundamentally, it means rethinking our still-persistent notion that educational problems should be solved by schools alone. The more we do to ensure that all children have similar cognitively stimulating early childhood experiences, the less we will have to worry about failing schools. This in turn will enable us to let our schools focus on teaching the skills — how to solve complex problems, how to think critically and how to collaborate — essential to a growing economy and a lively democracy.”

Sean Reardon American sociologist

No Rich Child Left Behind, 2013

Childhood , School , Democracy , Business

“Your task as a student of human nature is twofold: First, you must understand and accept the theatrical quality of life. You do not moralize and rail against the role-playing and the wearing of masks so essential to smooth social functioning. In fact, your goal is to play your part on the stage of life with consummate skill, attracting attention, dominating the limelight, and making yourself into a sympathetic hero or heroine. Second, you must not be naive and mistake people’s appearances for reality. You are not blinded by people’s acting skills. You transform yourself into a master decoder of their true feelings, working on your observation skills and practicing them as much as you can in daily life.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Understanding , People , Nature , Reality

“Responsibility is the cornerstone of awakening. Essentially, what responsibility is, is owning your own life. To become responsible is to step into this ability and chose to both create and respond to your life instead of to passively react to it as if it is happening to you. It is stepping into authority over yourself.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Life

“The Church, poor old benighted creature, had at least taken care of that: the noble aspiring soul, not doomed to choke ignobly in its penuries, could at least run into the neighboring Convent, and there take refuge. Education awaited it there; strict training not only to whatever useful knowledge could be had from writing and reading, but to obedience, to pious reverence, self-restraint, annihilation of self,—really to human nobleness in many most essential respects. No questions asked about your birth, genealogy, quantity of money-capital or the like; the one question was, "Is there some human nobleness in you, or is there not?"”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

The poor neat-herd's son, if he were a Noble of Nature, might rise to Priesthood, to High-priesthood, to the top of this world,—and best of all, he had still high Heaven lying high enough above him, to keep his head steady, on whatever height or in whatever depth his way might lie!
1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The New Downing Street (April 15, 1850)

Money , Soul , Reading , Question

“Anything is true, is essential to the national.”

Dionysios Solomos (1798–1857) Greek poet

in Greek: "Εθνικόν το Αληθές"
Thoughts of the poet, prolegomena by Iakovos Polylas, "Poems, Icarus edition, 1961"

“This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

Part of this is often misquoted as "We have nothing to fear but fear itself," most notably by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his I've Been To The Mountaintop https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm speech. Similar expressions were used in ancient times, for example by Seneca the Younger (Ep. Mor. 3.24.12 http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/sen/seneca.ep3.shtml): scies nihil esse in istis terribile nisi ipsum timorem ("You will understand that there is nothing dreadful in this except fear itself"), and by Michel de Montaigne: "The thing I fear most is fear", in Essays (1580), Book I, Ch. 17.
1930s, First Inaugural Address (1933)

Life , Time , Understanding , Country

“Production that is essentially completed, which no longer requires strength, ability, inventiveness, entrepreneurship and brilliance (e.g., the transportation system, trusts, conglomerates) will be brought back to state ownership.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Der Nazi-Sozi https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/nazi-sozi.htm, Elberfeld: Verlag der Nationalsozialistischen Briefe (1927)
1920s

“Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. By saying our interests first, who cares about the others, we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values.”

Emmanuel Macron (1977) 25th President of the French Republic

11 November 2018, French>English translation reported by CNN https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/11/politics/donald-trump-armistice-day-paris/index.html
2017, 2018

Betrayal , Life , Making love

“If communication takes place between the artwork and the public, it is on the level of sensibility, through the emotions and their immanent modifications. It does not have anything to do with words, with collective, ideological or scientific representations, or with their critical, intellectual or literary formulations, in short, anything that is called culture. It is totally independent from that type of culture. This is why it is addressed to the group of people who ‘lack culture’. It is popular in the sense that it leads to what is most essential in each human being: one’s capacity to feel, to suffer and to love.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, Seeing the invisible: On Kandinsky, Continuum, 2009, p. 73
Books on Culture and Barbarism, Seeing the Invisible: On Kandinsky (1988)

People , Suffering , Communication , Sense

“Looking back, it seems to me extraordinary that we should have contemplated having both a nurse and a servant, but they were considered essentials of life in those days, and were the last things we would have thought of dispensing with. To have committed the extravagance of a car, for instance, would never have entered our minds. Only the rich had cars.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

Part V: War, §IV
An Autobiography (1977)

Life , Cars

“The cross is not random suffering, but necessary suffering. The cross is not suffering that stems from natural existence; it is the suffering that comes from being Christian. … A Christianity that no longer took discipleship seriously remade the gospel into only the solace of cheap grace. Moreover, it drew no line between natural and Christian existence. Such a Christianity had to understand the cross as one's daily misfortune, as the predicament and anxiety of our daily life. Here it has been forgotten that the cross also means being rejected, that the cross includes the shame of suffering. Being shunned, despised, and deserted by people, as in the psalmists unending lament, is an essential feature of the suffering of the cross, which cannot be comprehended by a Christianity that is unable to differentiate between a citizen's ordinary existence and a Christian existence. The cross is suffering with Christ.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), Discipleship and the Cross, p. 86

Understanding , People , Suffering , Nature

“The essential condition for life is the existence of sharp energy gradients.”

Stephen Baxter book Raft

Source: Raft (1991), Chapter 15 (p. 151)

Life

“The current crisis demonstrates not only that all the ideological nonsense about the virtues of the free market is quickly thrown overboard when capitalist interests are threatened, but also that the idea that governments are essentially powerless in the face of the markets is rubbish. Governments are not helpless victims who cannot do anything in the face of “economic reality.””

Tom Bramble Australian trade unionist

In the normal course of events, when we demand things like better welfare, health care or education, governments tell us that it isn’t possible.
Everyone's a socialist in a crisis, 21 March 2020

Idea , Reality

“It is nature herself, therefore, which (decrees) that the usage which each must make of his reason should consist essentially in recognizing his sovereign author. ... In order to make this phantom of unlimited freedom vanish from the eyes of healthy reason, is it not enough to say that this system was that of the Vaudois and the Beguars?”

Pope Pius VI (1717–1799) pope and sovereign of the Papal States

Quod aliquantum (10 March 1791), quoted in André Latreille and Joseph E. Cunneen, 'The Catholic Church and the Secular State: The Church and the Secularization of Modern Societies', CrossCurrents Vol. 13, No. 2 (Spring 1963), p. 221

Freedom , Making love , Nature

“There has never been a time, until the last fifty years, when a majority of any population had regular and constant access to drama, and used this access. . . . It seems probable that in societies like Britain and the United States more drama is watched in a week or weekend, by the majority of viewers, than would have been watched in a year or in some cases a lifetime in any previous historical period. It is clearly one of the unique characteristics of advanced industrial societies that drama as an experience is now an intrinsic part of everyday life, at a quantitative level which is so very much greater than any precedent as to seem a fundamental qualitative change. Whatever the social and cultural reasons may finally be, it is clear that watching dramatic simulation of a wide range of experiences is now an essential part of our modern cultural pattern.”

Raymond Williams (1921–1988) philosopher

Television: Technology and Cultural Form

Life , Time , Parting , Change

“Wherever there is a main issue the elimination of other things which are not essential will make for a stronger result. In the earlier static abstract sculptures I was most interested in space, vectoral quantities, and centers of differing densities.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1930s, Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture (1933)
Source: en.wikiquote.org - Alexander Calder / Quotes / 1930s / Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture (1933)

Making love

“As we shall see, there have always been two "bodies" of the American dream. One, the dream of tangibles, focuses on material well-being and practical, everyday freedoms. The other, like an etheric body extending from the material dream, seeks psychological liberation—a goal at once more essential and more elusive. The proponents of the latter dream have nearly always come from the comfortable social classes. Having achieved the first measure of freedom, they hunger for the second.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Five, The American Matrix for Transformation

Hunger , Dreams , Freedom

“The invisibility of women in canonical histories might lead us to believe that women have no history. Surely then a female history is an essential tool in the emancipation of women? This is partly because if we have no history we are ‘trapped’ in the present where oppressive social relations can continue unchallenged. Furthermore, history can be seen as evidence that things can and do change.”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 6 : Reading architectural herstories : The discourses of gender

History , Relation ships , Women , Change

“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of “justice” but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when “freedom” becomes a special privilege.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Source: The Russian Revolution (1918), Chapter Six, "The Problem of Dictatorship"

Justice , Dependency , Freedom , Support

“[B]iography is an essential part of human memory. We think about ourselves in terms of what we have done – our identity is constructed around our past. Are history and biography linked or just two parallel strands? Biographers and historians make choices about how to frame their subject, they draw together fragments to present a possible glimpse of the unattainable whole. An historian might have a thesis or method which drives his/her enquiry whereas a biographer has, perhaps, a particular view of an individual they wish to present. Neither presents the truth, only an interpretation.”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 2 : The authority of the author : Biography and the reconstruction of the canon

Drawing , History , Past , Truth

“Architectural History is more than just the study of buildings. Architecture of the past and the present remains an essential emblem of a distinctive social system and set of cultural values, and as a result it has been the subject of study of a variety of disciplines.”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 1 : Reading the past : What is architectural history?

Past , Study , History

“For the first time the personality is deliberately cultivated as such; and from that time [the European Renaissance] until today it has not been possible to separate the achievements of a civilization from the achievements of the individuals composing it. I have not the slightest doubt that this form of individuation represents a higher stage in the evolution of mankind. The future unit is the individual, a world in himself, self-contained and self-creative, freely giving and freely receiving, but essentially a free spirit.”

Herbert Read (1893–1968) English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art

Source: The Philosophy of Anarchism (1940), P. 11-12

Time , Personality , Future , Self-confidence

“The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil. The "reasonable" people's failure is obvious. With the best intentions and a naive lack of realism, they think that with a little reason they can bend back into position the framework that has got out of joint. In their lack of vision they want to do justice to all sides, and so the conflicting forces wear them down with nothing achieved. Disappointed by the world's unreasonableness, they see themselves condemned to ineffectiveness; they step aside in resignation or collapse before the stronger party.
Still more pathetic is the total collapse of moral fanaticism. Fanatics think that their single-minded principles qualify them to do battle with the powers of evil; but like a bull they rush at the red cloak instead of the person who is holding it; they exhaust themselves and are beaten. They get entangled in non-essentials and fall into the trap set by cleverer people.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Who Stands Fast?, p. 4

Justice , Light , Personality , People

“Making a life, not just a living, is essential to one seeking wholeness. Our hunger turns out to be for something different, not something more.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Ten, The Transformation of Values and Vocation, p. 323

Hunger , Life , Making love

“Shedding tears we spend the night in this deepening dark,
Our day is but a long struggle against an uphill path,
Not a single moment goes when we don't bewail our lot,
Lo! we cast a lingering look on these doors and walls.
Fare thee well, my countrymen, we are going afar!
We wish you well, O friends, leave you to His care,
And entrust our Qaiser Bagh to the blowing air,
While we give our tender heart to terror and despair.
Fare thee well, my countrymen, we are going afar!
I am betrayed by my friends, whom should I excuse?
Except God the gracious, I have no refuge,
I can't escape exile, under any excuse.
Lo, we cast a lingering look on the doors and wells,
Fare thee well, my countrymen, we are going afar!
I have been told this much too, ah! the scourage of time!
The servant calls his master 'mad,' a travesty of the mind.
As for me, I cannoy help, but rot in alien climes.
Lo, we cast a lingering look on these doors and walls,
Fare thee well, my countrymen, we are gong afar!
This is the cause of my regret, to whom should I complain?
What wondrous goods of mine are subjected to disdain,
My exile has raised a storm in the whole domain.
Lo we cast a lingering look on the doors and walls,
Fare thee well, my countrymen, we are going afar!
You cannot help but suffer, O heart, the sharp strings of grief,
They didn't spare even the things essential for the mourning meets,
In the scorching summer heat, I've no cover or sheet.
Akhtar now departs from all his friends and mates,
There is little time or need to dwell upon my fate,
Save, O God, my countrymen from the dangers lying in wait!
Lo, we cast a lingering look on these doors and walls,
Fare thee well, my countrymen, we are going afar!”

Wajid Ali Shah (1822–1887) Nawab of Awadh

Masterpieces of Patriotic Urdu Poetry, p. 63-67
Poetry

Despair , God , Time , Night

“The image of the enterprise as a place where employees can achieve personal fulfilment is therefore an essentially ideological invention. It conceals the real transformations that have taken place, namely that enterprises are replacing labour by machines, producing more and better with a decreasing percentage of the workforce previously employed, and offering privileges to a chosen elite of workers, which are accompanied by unemployment, precarious employment, de-skilling and lack of job security for the majority. The advance of technology has thus resulted in the segmentation and disintegration of the working class. An elite has been won over to collaboration with capital in the name of work ethic; the great mass of workers have become marginalized or lost their job security and serve as a reserve army for industry which wishes to be able to adjust its workforce rapidly according to fluctuations in demand.”

André Gorz (1923–2007) austrian philosopher

p. 66 https://books.google.com/books?id=WbpvDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA66
Critique of Economic Reason, 1988

Personality

“No system can ever relieve us of our personal responsibility, and it is essential that we all recognise the need to change the way we live.”

Shaun Chamberlin

What We Are Fighting For: A Radical Collective Manifesto (2012) https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745332857/what-we-are-fighting-for/

Way , Personality , Change

“Spirituality is the essential nature of our being, simply needing demonstration in outer forms. Whatever we can conceive of as human activity can be, in fact must be, spiritual. True morality is not to do with a code of values which humanity evolves to suit a certain society or a certain religious belief, but something which is intrinsic in our spirituality.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: Maitreya's Mission Vol. III (1997)

Nature

“History, as Treitschke contends, is first of all the presentation of res gestae, and of active statesmen. The essential things in the statesman are strength of will, courage, massive ambition, passionate joy in the result. It needs no wizard to see how such doctrine as this lends a hand to the sinister school of political historians, who insist that the event is its own justification; that Force and Right are one.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

‘Politics and History’, Address as Chancellor of the University of Manchester (summer 1912), quoted in The Works of Lord Morley: Volume IV (1921), p. 33
1910s

School , Courage , History , Joy

“It (Teaism) is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

The Book of Tea

Life

“I believe that the anarchist fight, the struggle for an anarchist society, is essential, but I also think that the realizing of such a society is impossible.”

Jacques Ellul book Anarchy and Christianity

Source: Anarchy and Christianity (1988), p. 19

Fight , Thinking

“I think most Americans, without recognizing it, say and believe both racist and antiracist ideas. What I'm seeking to do is get them to recognize those racist ideas, get them to essentially get rid of them and essentially strive to be antiracist, strive to see the racial groups as equals.”

Ibram X. Kendi (1982) American author and historian

On his views of the American mentality regarding race in “Ibram X. Kendi's Latest Book: 'How To Be An Antiracist'” https://www.npr.org/2019/08/13/750709263/ibram-x-kendis-latest-book-how-to-be-an-antiracist in NPR (2019 Aug 13)

Idea , Thinking

“I enjoyed working on any story. I’m essentially a storyteller. You name the subject, and I’ll give a good story on it.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

Source: page 5 http://www.tcj.com/jack-kirby-interview/5/ 1990, Gary Groth interview

“By visiting places of pilgrimage like Benares and Rameshvaram, a man cannot attain Mukti. What is essential is keeping the mind steady for a moment by introversion.”

Bhagawan Nityananda (1897–1961) Hindu guru and saint

31
The Chidakasha Gita (1927)

“Humanity is entirely responsible for being at the root of the problems arising from global warming. We need to rethink the way we live on earth in order to preserve life. Global warming is out of control…. Time is not on our side, which is why I am calling on all young millennials to hasten this radical revolution. You are a part of nature and compassion decrees that you take care of it as much as you do yourselves. It is only through mutual support and co-operation that you will be able to contain disasters that are fuelled by economic and social injustice and are fuelled by greed, selfishness, and other negative states of mind…. You are responsible for the wellbeing of billions of humans and all manner of living species sharing the adventure of life on earth. It is up to you to protect natural resources and guard over air, water, oceans, forests, fauna and flora. To do so it is essential that you realize your potential for love and compassion in order to care for the earth. Learn to love it through sharing it rather than striving to possess it and thereby destroying it.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

A Call for Revolution (2017-2018)

Selfishness , Time , Support , Learning

“The continuation of diachrony in perceptions of life and death spreads across a form of antinatalism essentially co-opted from a kind of Western fetishism of Buddhism, namely efilism. Coming etymologically from the reverse of 'life', efilism claims it is better never to have been. Efilist philosophers such as David Benatar hinge their arguments on basic binaries of pleasure and pain which roughly correlate to good and bad and extend to a vindication of life and death. Efilism has a vague correspondence with utilitarianism but emphasizes the suffering of life over utilitarianism's greater good. Both are absolute in their perception of the capacity to evaluate which is which, making both dependent on economic measure of value as an either/or, and to an extent both on (anthropocentric) determinism. Efilism's redeeming feature is that it promotes antinatalism, and often veganism, in its aspirations to a reduction in suffering, and this attitude promises potentials for opening the world through the cessation of the human.”

Patricia MacCormack Australian Scholar

Embracing Death, pp. 152-153
The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene (2020)

Pain , Dependency , Making love , Bad luck

“A thousand departments of mental and physical activity foster and in turn are fostered by its achievement. People must be governed, and there must be those who govern. Laws must be made, and there must be those who study, and those who execute these laws. People must be taught, and there must be teachers. All these and the Church, the newspaper, the theatre, the fine arts are essential to the completeness of the State, to the happiness and safety of its people; but Commerce is the main stem, or trunk, where they are all branches, supplied with the sap of its far-reaching wealth. It is as necessary to the existence of any nation as blood to the physical man. That country in which trade flourishes is accounted happy, while that in which Commerce droops provokes shaking of heads and prophecies of downfall.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce

Study , Law , Country , Wealth

“Critical thinking is the indispensable skill for smart living in modern society, and skepticism is the essential posture for the fully awake twenty-first-century human being.”

Guy P. Harrison (1963) American skeptic author

Thinking

“The mere formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and makres real advances in science.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

http://umich.edu/~scps/html/01chap/html/summary.htm
Attributed in posthumous publications, Einstein and Religion (1999)

Imagination , Question , Problem , Mathematics

“I am enraptured by Hindu philosophy, whose essential endeavor is to surmount the self; and everything I do, everything I think is only myself and the selfs humiliations.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

Self-confidence , Thinking

“Dads—like moms, air, and water—are essential to our lives.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 105

Water , Moms

“...the [Whig] party, which has thought proper to proscribe me on account of a book [the Reflections] which I published on the Idea, that the principles of a new, republican, frenchified Whiggism was gaining ground in this Country. ... The party with which I acted had, by the malevolent and unthinking been reproached, and by the wise and good always esteemd and confided in—as an aristocratick Party. Such I always understood it to be in the true Sense of the word. I understood it to be a Party, in its composition and in its principles, connected with the solid, permanent long possessed property of the Country; a party, which, by a Temper derived from that Species of Property, and affording a security to it, was attached to the antient tried usages of the Kingdom, a party therefore essentially constructed upon a Ground plot of stability and independence; a party therefore equally removed from servile court compliances, and from popular levity, presumption, and precipitation.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to William Weddell (31 January 1792), quoted in P. J. Marshall and John A. Woods (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VII: January 1792–August 1794 (1968), pp. 52-53
1790s

Confidence , Country , Self-confidence , Books

“The idea of community presupposes the idea of something in common as well as the idea of community members who have in common what is held in common. [...] Perhaps there is only one and the same reality, one and the same essence, of community and its members. Let us give a name right away to this single and essential reality of the community and its members: life. So, we can already say that the essence of community is life; every community is a community of living beings.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Michel Henry, Material Phenomenology, Fordham University Press, 2008, p. 118-119
Books on Phenomenology and Life, Material Phenomenology (1990)

Idea , Life , Reality , Communication

“Buddha, as the source, and Maitreya, as a universal hope, will unite the austere followers of the Teaching of the South with the multiformity of the North. That which is most essential for the immediate future will definitely manifest itself. Instead of swelling the Teaching with commentaries, it will again be restored to the beauty of the value of concise conviction. The new time of the Era of Maitreya is in need of conviction.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

Source: Foundations of Buddhism (1930)

Time , Beauty , Future , Hope

“Radicals and Conservatives are not at all unlike, temperamentally. They want order, organization, efficiency, perfection. The Conservative or Reactionary thinks these can be best obtained by putting and keeping the power in the hands of a small class. He is afraid that an extension of democracy will destroy form and tradition, which he believes are essential to holding any society together. The Radical is so obsessed by the obvious faults of society that he wants to pull everything up by the roots and start all over again, and build a perfect society according to a blueprint. It is interesting that when the extreme Radicals triumph—in a revolution, for instance, as in Russia—they immediately become rigidly conservative, and punish all deviation rigorously. The worst fundamentalists in the world today are the Russian communists.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938), p. 86

Perfection , Thinking , World , Democracy

“The American Revolution of 1776 was a great liberal revolution. The Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution, more than any documents on earth, embody the fundamentals of liberalism. These documents assert the essential equality of human beings. This does not mean, and never did, that one man is as talented, or wise, or good as another, or that each person is entitled to the same rewards. It does mean that every human being has a right to his own life; that no man may be forced to labor against his will, or to assert beliefs contrary to his conscience, or be relegated to one class of society.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Dorothy Thompson’s Political Guide: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
Source: A Study of American Liberalism and its Relationship to Modern Totalitarian States (1938)
pp. 64-65

Personality , Life

“Intuition is light itself, and when it is functioning, the world is seen as light and the light bodies of all forms become gradually apparent. This brings with it the ability to contact the light centre in all forms, and thus again an essential relationship is established and the sense of superiority and separateness recedes into the background.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Glamour: A World Problem (1950), Certain Preliminary Clarifications

Sense , World , Light

“When I announced in April of 1961 that this kind of comprehensive tax reform would follow the bill enacted this year, I had hoped to present it in an atmosphere of a balanced budget. But it has been necessary to augment sharply our nuclear and conventional forces, to step up our efforts in space, to meet the increased cost of servicing the national debt and meeting our obligations, established by law, to veterans. These expenditure increases, let me stress, constitute practically all of the increases which have occurred under this administration, the remainder having gone to fight the recession we found in industry--mostly through the supplemental employment bill-and in agriculture. We shall, therefore, neither postpone our tax cut plans nor cut into essential national security programs. This administration is determined to protect America's security and survival and we are also determined to step up its economic growth. I think we must do both.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Law , Hope , Thinking , Fight

“I have always looked upon the interests of the labouring classes as essentially the most conservative interests of the country. The rights of labour have been to me always as sacred as the rights of property, and I have always thought that those who were most interested in the stability and even in the glory of a State are the great mass of the population, happy to enjoy the privileges of freemen under good laws, and proud at the same time of the country which confers on its inhabitants a name of honour and of glorious reputation in every quarter of the globe.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in Edinburgh (30 October 1867), quoted in The Chancellor of the Exchequer in Scotland; Being Two Speeches Delivered by Him in the City of Edinburgh on 29th and 30th October, 1867 (1867), pp. 36-37

Time , Law , Country , Happiness

“I say that we put all our money upon the wrong horse. ... My own conviction is strong that, unless some very essential reforms in the conduct of the government are adopted, the doom of the Turkish Empire cannot be very long postponed.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/1897/jan/19/address-in-answer-to-her-majestys-most#column_29 in the House of Lords (19 January 1897), expressing regret for Britain's support of the Ottoman Empire in the Crimean War

Money , Horse , Strong

“I grieve that so much of the resources of this country must be spent on what is essentially an unprofitable expenditure ... but, after all, safety, safety from a foreign foe comes first, before every other earthly blessing, and we must take care, in our responsibility to the many interests that depend upon us, in our responsibility to the generations that are to succeed to us, that no neglect of ours shall suffer that safety to be compromised.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: Defending increased naval expenditure; speech in Brighton (19 November 1895), quoted in The Times (20 November 1895), p. 7

Suffering , Dependency , Country

“Now if Conservative has any meaning at all, it means anti-Radical. The Radicals are the only inheritors of the revolutionary views which the Conservative party was set up to counteract; and the two can no more act together, if both are honest, than a weasel can act with a rat. Hostility to Radicalism, incessant, implacable hostility, is the essential definition of Conservatism. The fear that the Radicals my triumph is the only final cause that the Conservative party can plead for their own existence.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Source: 'English Politics and Parties', Bentley's Quarterly Review, 1, (1859), p. 12

Fear , Hostility

“The main burden of local defense against local attack, subversion, insurrection or guerrilla warfare must of necessity rest with local forces. Where these forces have the necessary will and capacity to cope with such threats, our intervention is rarely necessary or helpful. Where the will is present and only capacity is lacking, our Military Assistance Program can be of help. But this program, like economic assistance, needs a new emphasis. It cannot be extended without regard to the social, political and military reforms essential to internal respect and stability. The equipment and training provided must be tailored to legitimate local needs and to our own foreign and military policies, not to our supply of military stocks or a local leader's desire for military display. And military assistance can, in addition to its military purposes, make a contribution to economic progress, as do our own Army Engineers.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Training , Making love , Help

“We must assume, at least for the time, the existence of certain great facts in Nature. I do not mean that our man of the world, in taking his first step towards the Path, need either know or recognize these facts. Facts in Nature do not change either with our believing or non-believing. Facts of Nature remain facts whether we know them or not, and since we are here in the realm of Nature, and under the order of law, the knowledge of the facts and the knowledge of the law are not essential for the steps which lead man to the Path.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Time , Law , Nature , Knowledge

“The faith commended to their faithful by all religions, and considered by them as a virtue essential for him who hopes for eternal salvation, is nowise approved in the Secret Teachings. Based on the advice given by the Buddha to His disciples, the primary recommendation that the Masters give to neophytes is: Doubt! Doubt is an incitement to research, and research is the Way which leads to Knowledge.”

Alexandra David-Néel (1868–1969) French explorer, spiritualist, Buddhist, anarchist and writer

Source: The Secret Oral Teachings in the Tibetan Buddhist Sects (1964)

Faith , Religion , Hope , Knowledge

“In the United States, such collusion with the destroyers of human life on Planet Earth is written all over their actions. It’s beyond evident in the appointment of former oil and gas lobbyists and fellow travelers to positions of power... We are, of course, talking about nothing short of the ultimate crime, but on any given day of our lives, you’d hardly notice that it was underway. Even for an old man like me, it’s a terrifying thing to watch humanity make a decision, however inchoate, to essentially commit suicide. In effect, there is now a suicide watch on Planet Earth. Let’s hope the kids can make a difference.”

Tom Engelhardt (1944) American writer

Suicide Watch on Planet Earth, CounterPunch, https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/26/suicide-watch-on-planet-earth/(26 April 2019)

Life , Hope , Decision , Travel

“In order to ensure absolute equality (which perchance cannot co-exist with essential distinctions) the new race may demand .either that sex be abolished, or that every human being be of both sexes. Perhaps the very perfecting process will either unsex or androgynise its subject, so that all alike shall be regenerated either neutral or epicene.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part VI, p. 85
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Perfection , Sex

“I knew it long ago: I’m a compulsive teacher, but I can’t teach. The godawful state of today’s education system isn’t what’s stopping me. I lack at least two of the essential qualifications.
I cannot “suffer fools gladly.””

Larry Niven book N-Space

The smartest of my pupils would get all my attention, and the rest would have to fend for themselves. And I can’t handle being interrupted.
Writing is the answer. Whatever I have to teach, my students will select themselves by buying the book. And nobody interrupts a printed page.
Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind (pp. 26-27)
Short fiction, N-Space (1990)

Education , Suffering , Fools , Teachers

“Life today is fast and full of opportunity. The complication is we think we have to do everything. The implication of this is we end up being pulled into endless distractions without pausing to really think. My position is we can make a different choice. We can discern what is really essential. We can design a life that really matters.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Journal Articles

Life , Thinking , Making love

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Paris Review interview (1958)

“There is no proper meaning … every expression is essentially tropic.”

Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) Greek-French philosopher

Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, trans. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge, Mass. 1987) p. 348 ([10.1093/camqtly/bfs004]).

“I considered myself white, having grown up essentially American but with Filipino parents. I don’t speak with an accent and I barely speak Tagalog. So, for most of my life, I looked at the world as a ‘white’ person.”

Jason Tanamor (1975) Filipino-American Author and Writer

Filipino Daily Inquirer Interview (2020)

World , Personality , Life , Parent

“The most Filipino thing about me is the way I look. Having grown up essentially in American culture, for the longest time I’d identified first as an American and second as a Filipino.”

Jason Tanamor (1975) Filipino-American Author and Writer

Esquire Philippines Interview (2020)

Way , Time

“The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

Sense

“Unlike utilitarianism, republican theory does not take people's existing preferences, whatever they may be, and try to satisfy them. It seeks instead to cultivate in citizens the qualities of character necessary to the common good of self-government. Insofar as certain dispositions, attachments, and commitments are essential to the realization of self-government, republican politics regards moral character as a public, not merely private, concern. In this sense, it attends to the identity, not just the interests, of its citizens.”

Michael J. Sandel (1953) American political philosopher

Chap. 2. Rights and the Neutral States
Democracy's Discontent (1996)

Sense , People

“I suggest that scientific knowledge, though logically more articulate and far more complex, is of this sort. The books and teachers from whom it is acquired present concrete examples together with a multitude of theoretical generalizations. Both are essential carriers of knowledge, and it is therefore Pickwickian to seek a methodological criterion that supposes the scientist can specify in advance whether each imaginable instance fits or would falsify his theory.”

Thomas Kuhn (1922–1996) American historian, physicist and philosopher

"Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?", Criticism and the growth of knowledge edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave (1970)

Imagination , Teachers , Books , Knowledge

“Sanctity is essentially contemplativity: it is the intuition of the spiritual nature of things; profound intuition which determines the entire soul, hence the entire being of man.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2012, Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom, 13, 978-1-93659700-0]
Spiritual path, Holiness

Soul , Nature

“Communism, socialism, the welfare state, et cetera, are essentially one and the same thing.”

Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) American academic

Leonard Read Journals, November 5, 1951 https://history.fee.org/leonard-read-journal/1951/leonard-e-read-journal-november-1951/

Communication

“I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

Democracy , Thinking

“The essential is to go on squirming forever at the end of the line, as long as there are waters and banks and ravening in heaven a sporting god to plague his creatures, per pro his chosen shits.”

Samuel Beckett book The Unnamable

The Unnamable (1954)

Sport , God , Water

“In this wicked and selfish world, with no essential values… being asshole is self-defense.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: In questo mondo malvagio ed egoista, senza valori essenziali... essere stronzi è legittima difesa.
Source: prevale.net

Selfishness , World

“Meritocracy is a concept that should exist in every workplace. Unfortunately, sometimes the inability of an executive reaches the point that it does not consider such an essential value for the development and the future of an entire generation of talents.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La meritocrazia è un concetto che dovrebbe esistere in ogni luogo di lavoro. Purtroppo, a volte l'incapacità di un dirigente arriva a tal punto da non considerare un valore così essenziale per lo sviluppo ed il futuro di un'intera generazione di talenti.
Source: prevale.net

Future

“Armed with Marxist-Leninist theory and ideology, the Communist Party of China has brought a new style of work to the Chinese people, a style of work that essentially entails integrating theory with practice, forging close links with the masses and practicing self-criticism.”

Mao Zedong book On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People

(zh-CN) 以马克思列宁主义的理论思想武装起来的中国共产党，在中国人民中产生了新的工作作风，这主要的就是理论和实践相结合的作风，和人民群众紧密地联系在一起的作风以及自我批评的作风。
1950s, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People (1957)

People

“All that we refer to as being ours – our body, our mind, our emotions – is not what we are, essentially.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

“Those who discover that reality of their inmost Being enjoy a sense of peace, love, and wisdom as its natural perfume. They experience their essential nature as true freedom.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Part I

Peace , Freedom , Nature , Reality

“The police... should never go on strike. Theirs was an essential service and they should render that service, irrespective of their pay. There were several other effective and honourable means of getting grievances redressed.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

In response to representatives of policemen who met him during a police strike in Gaya on March 24, 1947, https://web.archive.org/web/20210807112446/https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/no-fundamental-right-to-strike/article35732405.ece
Posthumous publications (1950s and later)

“There are two kinds of thoughtforms: those which are mental and those which are the result of man's fears - these are unreal. But they become real, because every thought is real. Even if it is an astral thoughtform, it is still a potent force although it has no essential reality.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

Reality , Fear

“Freedom and not peace, is essential when it comes on learning new concepts. We learn best by having fun. In enjoyment, rather than being under total surveillance.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Peace , Freedom , Learning

“What the virtues are to existential perfection, truths are to intellectual perfection; virtue is essentially simplicity, inward beauty, generosity, whereas truth, for its part, lies entirely in the discernment between the Real and the illusory or between the Absolute and the contingent.”

Frithjof Schuon book The Transfiguration of Man

[2005, The Transfiguration of Man, World Wisdom, 72, 978-0-94153219-8]
Spiritual life, Truth

Beauty , Perfection , Truth , Parting

“If there can be agreement that certain rights are essential to reduce the chances of perfect injustice, that constitutes the beginning of a solid theory of rights.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Source: Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002), p. 34

Chance , Perfection

“To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Sleep , Time , Thinking , Wisdom

“No man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like. The most essential step in the marketing of personal services is that of selecting an occupation into which you can throw yourself wholeheartedly.”

Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich (1938) p. 87

Personality

“Groups and parties flounder when the inner unity is disturbed. Unity is a soul quality and essential for the cohesion of the group. Too great an emphasis on individuals and personality differences thus tends to weaken the unifying ties which hold the group together.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: The Art of Co-operation (2002)

Soul , Personality

“Fundamentalism is not accidental but essential to Islam… It sees unchangeability as strength. That is why the word reform is so abhorrent to Muslim thinkers and religious leaders ...”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

Source: Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999)

“The limitation of the story to a single sequence and the essentially ad hoc nature of causal attributions call into question the whole procedure of using stories as evidence, and of thinking that they establish causality or patterns of reasons.”

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 7, “Good Stories” (p. 113)

Question , Nature , Thinking

Quotes about essential page 21

Quotes about essential
page 21