Quotessence
Home / Topics / Essentials Quotes

Essentials Quotes

Browse 3425 quotes about Essentials.

Related topics

IfsPeopleMenWorldHumansThinkingWayShouldMindKnowsNeedsWellsArtBelieveFirstsPersonsGovernmentGivingMayImportantQualityElementsStatesAquariumsSelfMeanWantIdeasTwoDoeMatterCharacterChildrenValuesWritingLongFormHas BeensIndividualSeemsWholeFactsSoulFeelsUseTryingBodyChristianHeartDifferencesLibertyKindOrderSpiritualConditionsGardenMadePrinciplesProcessRealitySocialGrowthPracticeRealCountryGardeningLawMomentsNationsPoliticalSpiritDevelopmentForceI BelieveLifeAbilityAbleBookReasonWarActionExistenceIngredientsEconomicTodayCertainEarthEconomyUnderstandingArtistCommunityDonePlayTermDemocracyHelpingScienceStoriesTasksCaremore

Essentials Quotes

“Essential truth, the truth of the intellectualists, the truth with no one thinking it, is like the coat that fits tho no one has ever tried it on, like the music that no ear has listened to. It is less real, not more real, than the verified article; and to attribute a superior degree of glory to it seems little more than a piece of perverse abstraction-worship.”

ThinkingLittlesRealSeemsTruthPiecesFitEssentialsDegreesWorshipGloryEarsSuperiorsAttributesArticlesCoatsAbstractionIntellectualism
Book:The Meaning of Truth: Human Understanding
Create image

“I am the kind of a woman that likes to move on mentally from point to point, and I like for my man to be there way ahead of me. Then if he is strong and honest, it goes on from there. Good looks are not essential, just extra added attraction.”

IfsMenWayLooksKindRomanceMovingStrongHonestGoes OnEssentialsAttractionLikesExtrasLooking Good
Book:I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader
Create image

“Science is a capital or fund perpetually reinvested; it accumulates, rolls up, is carried forward by every new man. Every man of science has all the science before him to go upon, to set himself up in business with. What an enormous sum Darwin availed himself of and reinvested! Not so in literature; to every poet, to every artist, it is still the first day of creation, so far as the essentials of his task are concerned. Literature is not so much a fund to be reinvested as it is a crop to be ever new-grown.”

MenFirstsArtStillsScienceArtistLiteratureCreationPoetEssentialsConcernedTasksEvery ManEnormousFundCrops
Book:The writings of John Burroughs
Create image

“The fascinating thing to a dispassionate observer about the structure of life in the Soviet Union is that in their efforts to produce an unknown that we may let its ideologists call Socialism the Communist dictators have produced a brutal approximation of monopoly Capitalism, a system that has all the disadvantages of our own, with none of the palliatives which come to us from surviving competition and from the essential division of economic and political power which has so far made it possible for the humane traditions of the Western world to continue.”

WorldMayMadePoliticalPoliticsEffortEconomicProduceEssentialsCapitalismTraditionStructureCompetitionUnionsWesternSocialismMade ItCommunismFascinatingDivisionCommunistSovietBrutalDictatorSoviet UnionObserversMonopolySurvivingHumaneDisadvantagesPolitical PowerWestern WorldApproximationDispassionate
Author:John Dos Passos
Create image

“Chiropractic, which celebrated its centennial in 1995, is a curious mixture of science and pseudoscience, sense and nonsense. Much of it is based on the theory that misaligned spinal bones produce nerve interference that causes disease. Many chiropractors claim that correcting these misalignments ("subluxations") can restore health and that regular spinal adjustments are essential to maintain it.”

PainCausesProduceTheoryEssentialsDiseaseClaimsBonesCuriousTherapyInjuryNonsenseNervesMixturesAdjustmentInterferenceCorrectingPseudoscienceChiropracticCentennial
Book:Inside Chiropractic: A Patient's Guide
Create image

“... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermediary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.”

FirstsPersonsRealCharacterFeelingsJoyUnderstandingEmotionFictionEssentialsElementsImprovementNovelistsMisfortunesEvokeFactualReal PersonSimplificationSuppressing
Author:Marcel Proust
Create image

“I blame the newspapers because every day they call our attention to insignificant things, while three or four times in our lives,we read books that contain essential things. Once we feverishly tear the band of paper enclosing our newspapers, things should change and we should find--I do not know--the Pensées by Pascal!”

KnowsShouldBookThreeAttentionKnowledgeFourOur LivesTearsBandEssentialsPaperNewsBlameNewspapersPensInsignificantPascalInsignificant Things
Author:Marcel Proust
Create image

“I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned "Now I lay me" and the Lord's Prayer and your father's and mother's name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.”

BelieveMotherFatherNamesLostI BelievePrayerNumbersLordKnowledgeCasesPiecesTenEssentialsLaysAddressesEquipmentTelephonesAlphabetKeystones
Book:One Writer's Beginnings
Create image

“The institution of representative government to us seems an essential part of democracy, but the ancients never thought of it. Its immense merit was that it enabled a large constituency to exert indirect power, and thus made possible the distribution of political responsibility throughout the great states of modern times.”

MadeStatesSeemsGovernmentPoliticalResponsibilityDemocracyModernEssentialsInstitutionsMeritImmenseRepresentativesDistributionIndirectModern TimesRepresentative GovernmentPolitical Responsibility
Book:The Quotable Bertrand Russell
Create image

“Throughout much of history, women writers have capitulated to male standards, and have paid too much heed to what Virginia Woolf calls "the angel in the house." She is that little ghost who sits on one's shoulder while one writes and whispers, "Be nice, don't say anything that will embarrass the family, don't say anything your man will disapprove of ..." [ellipsis in original] The "angel in the house" castrates one's creativity because it deprives one of essential honesty, and many women writers have yet to win the freedom to be honest with themselves.”

MenWritingLittlesHouseWinningCreativityToo MuchNiceHonestHonestyEssentialsStandardsAngelPaidOriginalsMalesGhostShouldersBeing HonestBeing NiceSay AnythingVirginiaHeedWoolf
Author:Erica Jong
Create image

“There are of course people who are more important than others in that they have more importance in the world but this is not essential and it ceases to be. I have no sense of difference in this respect because every human being comprises the combination form.”

PeopleWorldHumansImportantFormCoursesDifferencesHuman BeingsEssentialsImportanceEqualityCeaseCombination
Book:A primer for the gradual understanding of Gertrude Stein
Create image

“The protection of a ten-year-old girl from her father's advances is a necessary condition of social order, but the protection of the father from temptation is a necessary condition of his continued social adjustment. The protections that are built up in the child against desire for the parent become the essential counterpart to the attitudes in the parent that protect the child.”

YearsChildrenDesireOrderGirlFatherSocialParentAttitudeConditionsProtectTenEssentialsBuiltProtectionTemptationAdjustmentSocial OrderCounterparts
Book:Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world
Create image

“Out of the element of participation follows the certainty of faith; out of the element of separation follows the doubt in faith. And each is essential for the nature of faith. Sometimes certainty conquers doubt, but it cannot eliminate doubt. The conquered of today may become the conqueror of tomorrow. Sometimes doubt conquers faith, but it still contains faith. Otherwise it would be indifference.”

MayStillsSometimesWould BeTodayFaithDoubtTomorrowEssentialsElementsSeparationCertaintyConquerIndifferenceParticipationConqueror
Book:Dynamics of Faith
Create image

“Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth.”

MayTruthBeliefVirtueTruth IsLimitsEssentialsIdealsEndlessStatementsAbstractIngredientsConfessionInvestigation
Author:Charles Sanders Peirce
Create image

“Today the average inhabitant of the western hemisphere knows a little of everything. He has the newspaper on his breakfast table and wireless within reach. For the evening there is the film, cards, or a meeting to complete a day spent in the office or factory where nothing that is essential has been learnt. With slight variation this picture of a low cultural average holds good over the entire range from factory-hand of clerk to manager or director. Only the personal will to culture, in whatever field and however pursued raises modern man above this level.”

KnowsMenLittlesHas BeensHandsTodayFilmCultureLevelsModernFieldsDirectorsEssentialsOfficeLowsRaisesTablesMeetingsWesternAverageNewspapersCardsEveningManagersRangeBreakfastFactoriesPursuedVariationClerksWirelessModern ManHemisphereWithin Reach
Author:Johan Huizinga
Create image

“The truth of the thoughts that are here set forth seems to me unassailable and definitive. I therefore believe myself to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems. And if I am not mistaken in this belief, then the second thing in which the value of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved.”

IfsBelieveLittlesShowsProblemSeemsValuesFoundBeliefEssentialsSolutionsFinalsMetaphysicsMistaken
Book:Tractatus logico-philosophicus: The German text Logisch-philosophische abhandlung
Create image

“We have imagined ourselves a special creation, set apart from other humans. In the last twentieth century, we see that our povertyis as absolute as that of the poorest nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and to share our material wealth with those in need.”

NeedsHumansWellsWould BeLastsNationsWealthRaceAcceptingPovertyShareSpecialConditionsCenturyCreationMaterialsEssentialsAbsolutesDenyHuman RaceHuman ConditionQuestsTwentieth CenturyPoorestThose In NeedMaterial Wealth
Author:Robert Neelly Bellah
Create image

“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”

FeelsShouldFeelingsSpiritualTurnsPoetEssentialsContactInevitableAddressesAssociationFormalNotableKinshipOratorsFormal EducationAmericanism
Author:Edgar Lee Masters
Create image

“The essential thing is the formation of the political will of the nation: that is the starting point for political action.”

ActionPoliticalNationsEssentialsStartingFormationStarting PointPolitical WillPolitical Action
Book:The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939: An English Translation of Representative Passages Arranged Under Subjects and Edited by Norman H. Baynes
Create image

“What, then, is the basic difference between today's computer and an intelligent being? It is that the computer can be made to seebut not to perceive. What matters here is not that the computer is without consciousness but that thus far it is incapable of the spontaneous grasp of pattern--a capacity essential to perception and intelligence.”

MadeMatterTodayDifferencesConsciousnessEssentialsComputerPerceptionCapacityIntelligentPatternsPerceiveWhat MattersIncapableSpontaneous
Book:Visual Thinking
Create image

“The logic of all this seems to be that it is all right for young people in a democracy to learn about any civilization or social theory that is not dangerous, but that they should remain entirely ignorant of any civilization or social theory that might be dangerous on the ground that what you don't know can't hurt you ... a complete denial of the democratic principle that the general diffusion of knowledge and learning through the community is essential to the preservation of free government.”

PeopleKnowsShouldSeemsGovernmentMightYoungSocialCommunityHurtEducationPrinciplesDemocracyDangerousTheoryCivilizationEssentialsLogicDemocraticIgnorantDenialPreservationFree GovernmentDiffusionKnowledge And LearningSocial Theory
Book:Freedom and Responsibility in the American Way of Life
Create image

“I remain a religious agnostic, but, unlike most atheists, I not only am not hostile to traditional religion but consider it a highly valuable, not to say essential, social institution... I am convinced that the moral regeneration and repair of a frayed social fabric that this country so badly needs will not take place unless more people take their religion seriously.”

PeopleNeedsCountryChristianSocialReligiousMoralEssentialsInstitutionsAtheistValuableConvincedTraditionalFabricAgnosticHostileRegenerationSocial Institutions
Book:Why America Needs Religion: Secular Modernity and Its Discontents
Create image

“Determined secularists view these as residual inconsistencies that they have not yet go around to extirpating and that may not be worth bothering about... Form the secularist perspective it may be that the essential battles have been won and excessive zeal in pressing a final mopping-up operation might only excited further public hostility.”

MayHas BeensMightChristianFormReligiousViewsPerspectiveBattleEssentialsFinalsExcitedDeterminedBotherOperationsHostilityZealInconsistencyResidualMoppingMopping Up
Author:Richard John Neuhaus
Create image

“Let's call something a rigid designator if in every possible world it designates the same object, a non-rigid or accidental designator if that is not the case. Of course we don't require that the objects exist in all possible worlds.... When we think of a property as essential to an object we usually mean that it is true of that object in any case where it would have existed. A rigid designator of a necessary existent can be called strongly rigid.”

IfsThinkingWorldMeanCoursesCasesObjectsEssentialsProperty
Author:Saul Kripke
Create image

“Jane Jacobs work wouldnt have been complete if it hadn't inspired others to carry it on, and evolve Jane's groundbreaking accomplishments so that the essential kernel of thought remains relevant for future generations. The essayists in What We See have built on those essential footholds that people who have never heard of Jane Jacobs will benefit from for decades.”

PeopleIfsHas BeensGenerationsHeardEssentialsBenefitsBuiltRemainsInspiredDecadesEvolveAccomplishmentRelevantJaneFuture GenerationJacobEssayistsKernelGroundbreaking
Author:Majora Carter
Create image