Quotes About Essence

These various forms appear different in shape and size, yet they are of a single essence. . . . The Sixth Patriarch called it "essence of Mind". . . Here the Third Patriarch calls it "timeless Self-essence." Bankei called it "unborn Buddha-mind." They all refer to the same thing: Buddha-nature, true self. This essence is not born and can never die. It exists eternally. Some call it energy; others call it spirit. But what is it? No one knows. Any concept we have of what it is can only be an analogy. . . .

The job of the screenplay is to identify and extract the essence of the story from the novel and reconfigure it for the screen, maintaining its essence in a different vehicle.

By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sense or to thought.... This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence.

I don't think people change. I think they definitely mature. But I think the essence of what I am today is the same as when I was five years old. It's just maturity. I've become a healthier, fuller expression of that essence.

The essence of sin is a shift from God centeredness to a self-centeredness. The essence of salvation is a denial of self, not an affirming of self.

We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about: not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which by its essence, is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country.

As you experience success in applying kaizen to clear goals like weight loss or career advancement, remember to hold onto its essence: an optimistic belief in our potential for continuous improvement.

Love is what we are in our essence, and the more love we feel in our hearts, the more it will be brought to us.

If you think about it, in the most dramatic moments of its history Europe has always turned to philosophy and, in turn, philosophy has interrogated itself about the destiny of Europe as something that touches its very essence.

Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.

There are single thoughts that contain the essence of a whole volume, single sentences that have the beauties of a large work.

I look for the essence of a story and a human angle that I think audiences can relate to. I also look at how the dialogues flow in the film as a whole and between the characters, and most importantly I always consider what I can bring to the character from a creative point of view.

What the Supreme Court did in Citizens United is to say to these same billionaires and the corporations they control: 'You own and control the economy, you own Wall Street, you own the coal companies, you own the oil companies. Now, for a very small percentage of your wealth, we're going to give you the opportunity to own the United States Government.' This is the essence of what Citizens United is all about - and that's why it must be overturned.

The essence of Taoism is really expressed by these few words. Taoism is the way of the child, the way of the fool, the way of someone who doesn't need to be noticed.

In the process of deeply accepting our own inner experience, instead of being identified with a story of a limited self, we realize the compassion and wakefulness that is our essence.

Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle - for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death; let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.

The inability to stop is the essence of what addiction is, ... my favorite drug was more and all.

If God were to remove all evil from our world (but somehow leave human beings on the planet), it would mean that the essence of 'humanness' would be destroyed. We would become robots.

To penetrate into the essence of all being and significance, and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance of others, by expressing in the world of forms- truth, love, purity and beauty - this is the sole game which has any intrinsic and absolute worth. All other happenings, incidents and attainments can, in themselves, have no lasting importance.

I wonder is happiness only an essence of good living, that you shall taste only once or twice while you live, and then go on living with the taste in your mouth, and wishing you had the fullness of it solid between your teeth, like a good meal that you have tasted and cherished and look back in your mind to eat again.

Re-telling the Christian story is the essence of my vocation. That has been going on since the Evangelists in one form or another.

The real essence of any marriage that has struggled, however unsuccessfully, towards happiness, lies in the growth of a wordless understanding that what is acceptable to one partner will be acceptable to the other.

I want to live with autonomy. That's the essence of sin.

Roots of the weed sucked first life from the genesis of earth and hold the essence of it still. Always the weed returns; the cultured plant retreats before it.

Theories have been outgrown. The means is disappearing, the reality of the sensation alone remains. It is that in its essence which I wish to put down. It should be a delightful adventure.

Huge lemons, cut in slices, would sink like setting suns into the dusky sea, softly illuminating it with their radiating membranes, and its clear, smooth surface aquiver from the rising bitter essence.

In essence, we’re their servants who help them and who guard them from the public. (Leo) Oh gee, golly, goodie, Mr. Leo! Can I have my eyes gouged out, too? (Susan)

'Spice Girls' is about unifying the world - every age, every gender, everyone. It's woman power, it's an essence, a tribe.

Initiative is the essence of manhood. Noting comes to the man who is passive, except failure.

Sure, I could of done it different... put my clown in a closet and dressed up in straight clothing. I could of compromised my essence, and swallowed my soul.

The essence of Bhagavad Gita is that we should always think of Krsna, become His devotee, worship him and offer homage unto him.

The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.

In essence the whole thing of life is to just keep trying to do good things. Just do good things for people.

A main part of the struggle of art has been to make an art that is direct, simple, humane, unconnected with powers that be in their essence... To the degree that it is connected with the bourgeoisie via the marketplace and so on is not necessarily an artist's problem.

The essence of all practice is to be cool. Life is not worth getting excited about because whatever you perceive is an illusion.

We still by no means think decisively enough about the essence of action.

The essence of painting has actually always been to make it [the universal] plastically perceptible through colour and line.

The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on.

Ingratitude is the essence of vileness.

God shows us in Himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even the perfection of obedience--an obedience to His own laws; and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of his creatures we are reminded, even in His divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the human creature "that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.

I cling to my imperfection, as the very essence of my being.

Love is eternal, the aspect may change, but not the essence. 


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.

When you are focused upon something that you desire, then through the Law of Attraction, more and more thoughts about what you desire will be drawn, and you will feel greater positive emotion. You can speed the creation of something simply by giving it more attention—the Law of Attraction takes care of the rest and brings to you the essence of the subject of your thought.

The essence of God's action in wrath is to give people what they choose, in all its implications.

The oil industry is hardly free to operate as efficiently as it could or to be as responsive to consumer demands as it would like. It has become, in essence, a quasi-state-run enterprise, because it cannot drill, transport, refine, and store fuel without receiving government permission, complying with government regulations, and paying taxes at every level or production.

The true essence of Chinese culture is sophistication, refinement, the spirit of poetry. The spirit of ink painting and calligraphy lives on forever. Calligraphy is more important than painting. Chinese always consider nature. Man is a very small part of nature. That's why in Chinese painting you see huge mountains and man very small, very humble before nature. You must be harmonious and one with nature. You don't fight it. And then there's a bit of a poetry. Of course, it's very complicated, but also very simple.

Nature is a collective idea, and, though its essence exist in each individual of the species, can never in its perfection inhabit a single object.