Fundamental Essence Quotes

...that, to repeat what I heard for years and years and suspect you've been hearing over and over, yourself, something's meaning is nothing more or less than its function. Et cetera et cetera et cetera. Has she done the thing with the broom with you? No? What does she use now? No. What she did with me--I must have been eight, or twelve, who remembers--was to sit me down in the kitchen and take a straw broom and start furiously sweeping the floor, and she asked me which part of the broom was more elemental, more fundamental, in my opinion, the bristles or the handle. The bristles or the handle. And I hemmed and hawed, and she swept more and more violently, and I got nervous, and finally when I said I supposed the bristles, because you could after a fashion sweep without the handle, by just holding on to the bristles, but couldn't sweep with just the handle, she tackled me, and knocked me out of my chair, and yelled into my ear something like, 'Aha, that's because you want to sweep with the broom, isn't it? It's because of what you want the broom for, isn't it?' Et cetera. And that if what we wanted a broom for was to break windows, then the handle was clearly the fundamental essence of the broom, and she illustrated with the kitchen window, and a crowd of the domestics gathered; but that if we wanted the broom to sweep with, see for example the broken glass, sweep sweep, the bristles were the thing's essence. No? What now, then? With pencils? No matter. Meaning as fundamentaln ~ David Foster Wallace

Life is the fundamental essence of all reality. It doesn't emerge, and it never dies. Life simply is. It's the inherent quality of everything that is or is not. Under certain conditions, life awakens, and we call it living. But eventually all living forms decay and through so-called death, life transforms back into its elementary stage; the infinite potential for expression. We comprehend such transition as dying, but death is just a term we invented to mark the end of living. Everything that is born and dies is an expression of so-called absolute Life, which exists as a continuum in everything, everywhere, always, and on all levels, forever seeking new ways of becoming alive. We should, therefore, replace the popular saying "it's all about life and death" with "it's all about birth and death, while life is eternal. ~ Joseph Rain

Not knowing trauma or experiencing or remembering it in a dissociative way is not a passive shutdown of perception or of memory. Not knowing is rather an active, persistent, violent refusal; an erasure, a destruction of form and of representation. The fundamental essence of the death instinct, the instinct that destroys all psychic structure is apparent in this phenomenon. . . . The death drive is against knowing and against the developing of knowledge and elaborating [it]. ~ Dori Laub

The fundamental essence of science, which I think we've lost in our education system, is poking something with a stick and seeing what happens. Embrace that process of inquiry. ~ Philippe Cousteau, Jr.

We never know, do we, if the future is just more of the present pushed forward, or whether the look and feel, not to mention the fundamental essence of life might not be changing ~ Sven Birkerts

And when you talk about realization, accomplishment for that matter enlightenment is that when you realize the fundamental essence of your mind. ~ Sogyal Rinpoche

I spend my life studying that book, and every book I've written has in some sense been a book about the Bible, and that's what I mean by reclaiming its value and its essence for a world that no longer treats it literally and no longer reads it traditionally. ~ John Shelby Spong

Plants are not like us. They are different in critical and fundamental ways. As I catalog the differences between plants and animals, the horizon stretches out before me faster than I can travel and forces me to acknowledge that perhaps I was destined to study plants for decades only in order to more fully appreciate that they are beings we can never truly understand. Only when we begin to grasp this deep otherness can we be sure we are no longer projecting ourselves onto plants. Finally we can begin to recognize what is actually happening.

Our world is falling apart quietly. Human civilization has reduced the plant, a four-million-year-old life form, into three things: food, medicine, and wood... ~ Hope Jahren

But the essence of what was said is accurate. ~ Chris Kyle

To use a finger as a metaphor for the nonfingerness of a finger is not as good as using nonfingerness as a metaphor for the nonfingerness of a finger. ~ Zhuangzi

Before starting work on this book, we had to ask ourselves a question what is science fiction? Seemingly simple, but in reality the answer was hard to formulate. This is the definition we settled upon:
Science fiction is a member of a group of fictional genres whose narrative drive depends upon events, technologies, societies, etc. that are impossible, unreal, or that are depicted as occurring at some time in the future, the past or in a world of secondary creation. These attributes vary widely in terms of actuality, likelihood, possibility and in the intent with which they are employed by the creator. The fundamental difference between science fiction and the other "fantastical genres" of fantasy and horror is this: the basis for the fiction is one of rationality. The sciences this rationality generates can be speculative, largely erroneous, or even impossible, but explanations are, nevertheless, generated through a materialistic worldview. The supernatural is not invoked. ~ Stephen Baxter

I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose. We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us. This freedom is the fundamental strength of our unique experiment in government. In the complex interplay of forces and considerations that go into the making of our laws and policies, its preservation must be a pervasive and dominant concern. ~ Mario

A second quality of mature sirituality is kindness. It is based on a fundamental notion of self-acceptance ... ~ Jack Kornfield

Soon we had tumbled into a most fundamental debate. How can different religions coexist? ~ Mitch Albom

The fundamental issue is the moral issue. ~ David Attenborough

Spreading straw might be considered rather unimportant, but it is fundamental to my method of growing rice and winter grain. It is connected with everything, with fertility, with germination, with weeds, with keeping away sparrows, with water management. In actual practice and in theory, the use of straw in farming is a crucial issue. This is something that I cannot seem to get people to understand. ~ Anonymous

My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings - what we sometimes call "mind" - are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more. - CARL SAGAN ~ Michio Kaku

If therefore my work is negative, irreligious, atheistic, let it be remembered that atheism - at least in the sense of this work - is the secret of religion itself; that religion itself, not indeed on the surface, but fundamentally, not in intention or according to its own supposition, but in its heart, in its essence, believes in nothing else than the truth and divinity of human nature. ~ Ludwig Feuerbach

I could never be French, I could never become German - I shall always remain American - the essence which is in me is American mysticism just as Davies declared it when he saw those first landscapes. ~ Marsden Hartley

The Tree of Life was an ancient symbol of interconnection, fertility, and eternal life - precisely because of this legendary tree's fruit. Fruit is part of our essence, a basic element of who we are. We cannot survive without fruit on this planet. It outweighs the nutrition of any other food. Yet the current "health" movement toward low-carb diets has put fruit on the endangered species list, with the goal of making it extinct. Is this denial? Ignorance? Foolishness? We're not talking about uneducated people who are driving the trend. We're talking about smart, highly intelligent professionals with advanced degrees in medicine and nutrition. If they're advising patients to shun fruit, it must be because of their training, the misinformation out there, or their own selective interests. Have you heard of book burning? If the anti-sugar war keeps up its momentum, fruit trees will be next to go up in flames. ~ Anthony William

The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.
~ Iris Murdoch

Accepting who we are is a practice of non-harming. Sadly, much self-help literature contains seeds of harm: We are urged to remake ourselves into someone who will be spiritually or psychologically acceptable, and that acceptance is conditional on our performance in the areas of therapy, growth, or meditation. We are still not accepting ourselves unconditionally, just as we are in this moment, with a full and joyful heart. A more merciful practice begins with acceptance. It begins with the assumption that we were never broken, never defective. By surrendering into a deep acceptance of our own nature - rather than by tearing apart who we are - we actually make more room for genuine, rich, merciful, playful growth and change. If we feel our fundamental strength, creativity, and wisdom, then change is not frightening at all. Things simply fall away when they are ready, making room for the rich harvest underneath. ~ Wayne Muller

What if that was the fate of all of us, turned into the very basest of creatures, the very essence of evil? ~ Alexander Gordon Smith

It is a fundamental principle of American democracy that laws should not be public only when it is convenient for government officials to make them public. They should be public all the time, open to review by adversarial courts, and subject to change by an accountable legislature guided by an informed public. If Americans are not able to learn how their government is interpreting and executing the law then we have effectively eliminated the most important bulwark of our democracy. That's why, even at the height of the Cold War, when the argument for absolute secrecy was at its zenith, Congress chose to make US surveillance laws public. Without public laws, and public court rulings interpreting those laws, it is impossible to have informed public debate. And when the American people are in the dark, they can't make fully informed decisions about who should represent them, or protest policies that they disagree with. These are fundamentals. It's Civics 101. And secret law violates those basic principles. It has no place in America. ~ Ron Wyden

Can you tell me in one sentence what is meant by logotherapy?" he asked. "At least, what is the difference between psychoanalysis and logotherapy?" "Yes," I said, "but in the first place, can you tell me in one sentence what you think the essence of psychoanalysis is?" This was his answer: "During psychoanalysis, the patient must lie down on a couch and tell you things which sometimes are very disagreeable to tell." Whereupon I immediately retorted with the following improvisation: "Now, in logotherapy the patient may remain sitting erect but he must hear things which sometimes are very disagreeable to hear. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

A major existential breakthrough was averted Friday when, moments before he had a realization of monumental personal significance, 29-year-old local resident Darrell Gatsas instead turned to God. "He was so, so close to discovering something truly fundamental about himself and his place in the universe, but nope - he went with God," close friend Peter Rankin, 27, said. "For a second there it seemed like he was going to seriously consider the cause-and-effect relationship of his own actions and elevate himself to a new level of compassion and understanding, but then he suddenly changed course and asked God to swoop in and fix everything." Reached for comment, God chuckled to reporters that Gatsas is, indeed, a real piece of work. ~ The Onion

The distance between losing someone and accepting that they are gone is of course the very essence of grieving, ~ Marie Mutsuki Mockett

I urge calm and sensitivity to the fundamental civil liberties of our country. ~ Larry Craig

He was the kind to cut through to the essence, and thus someone who made a difference. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

No greater love exists than when you sacrifice your very life for those who are your brothers and sisters by grace and by blood. God is the essence of your soul, as your soul is the essence of your body; therefore, just as the soul is more valuable than the body, so the union of the soul to God by the heavenly food of love is far more valuable than the union of the body to the soul by any earthly food in this life. Feeding your body healthy food is a good thing to do, but if you don't nourish your soul also, it will be forever hungry. Do both, then, but remember that feeding your soul is most important. Merely feeding your body with good food doesn't help you achieve salvation, but when your soul is well-fed, even when food for the body is scarce, your soul not only wins salvation but also knows the peace of God as it advances along the path of contemplation. ~ Anonymous

The human spirit. The heroic in man. The aspiration and the fulfillment, both. Uplifted in its quest--and uplifting by its own essence. Seeking God--and finding itself. Showing that there is no higher reach beyond its own form.... ~ Ayn Rand

It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams ~ Joseph Conrad

When the woman said, "I don't need a piece of paper to love you," she was using a very specific definition of "love." She was assuming that love is, in its essence, a particular kind of feeling. She was saying, "I feel romantic passion for you, and the piece of paper doesn't enhance that at all, and it may hurt it." She was measuring love mainly by how emotionally desirous she was for his affection. And she was right that the marital legal "piece of paper" would do little or nothing directly to add to the feeling. ~ Timothy Keller

I had always functioned with dignity, wanting to appear intelligent, macho, never vulnerable or insecure. But now I realize that ... a part of these comic characters is a fundamental part of me too. ~ Leslie Nielsen

Liberty of conscience is for those who truly fear the Lord. A fundamental task of the state is the establishment of pure religion. ~ John Cotton

It's something fundamental to me, human rights that people are equal under law simply because they are human beings. And I can no more imagine falling in love with someone who believed, for instance, as Orthodox Jews do, that women are unclean during their menstrual periods. ~ Susan Jacoby

And now I am ready to keep running When the sun rises beyond the borderlands of death. I already see mountain ridges in the heavenly forest Where, beyond every essence, a new essence awaits. ~ Czeslaw Milosz

The essence of the phenomenon of gambling is decision making. The act of making a decision consists of selecting one course of action, or strategy, from among the set of admissible strategies. ~ Richard Arnold Epstein

Let the youthful soul look back on life with the question: what have you truly loved up to now, what has elevated your soul, what has mastered it and at the same time delighted it? Place these venerated objects before you in a row, and perhaps they will yield for you, through their nature and their sequence, a law, the fundamental law of your true self. Compare these objects, see how one complements, expands, surpasses, transfigures another, how they form a stepladder upon which you have climbed up to yourself as you are now; for your true nature lies, not hidden deep within you, but immeasurably high above you, or at least above that which you normally take to be yourself. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The problem with today's culture is that we have too many rights and not enough wrongs. ~ Ron Brackin

To understand the essence and workings of insanity, Gallus Vibius strained his mind so that he tore his judgment from its seat and could never get it back again: he could boast he became mad through wisdom.1 ~ Michel De Montaigne

The writing of a novel is taking life as it already exists, not to report it but to make an object, toward the end that the finished work might contain this life inside it and offer it to the reader. The essence will not be, of course, the same thing as the raw material; it is not even of the same family of things. The novel is something that never was before and will not be again. ~ Eudora Welty

I mean, contrary to the contemporary version of it, classical liberalism (which remember was pre-capitalist, and in fact, anti-capitalist) focused on the right of people to control their own work, and the need for free creative work under your own control - for human freedom and creativity. So to a classical liberal, wage labor under capitalism would have been considered totally immoral, because it frustrates the fundamental need of people to control their own work: you're a slave to someone else. ~ Noam Chomsky

Radio has always been pictures of the mind; for me, the essence of radio has always been voices that talk to me and don't patronise me. ~ David Rodigan

Got to go sing in a few minutes ... no, that's GOT to go sing in a few minutes, as in ... GOT TO GO SING in a few minutes ... hahaha It's an all consuming compassion/obsession ... a drawing ... a wonderful bliss ... a union of soul and spirit, of notes and voice, of all of life's vibrating essence. String theory ... all of life is vibrating, is alive, and the life of that essence is music itself!! ~ Gloria Smith

Everything that the Bible identifies as sin and our nature recognizes as such is something essentially good gone wrong. More precisely, it is something God has made that we have corrupted. Augustine defined the essence of sin as being curved in on ourselves ~ Michael S. Horton

Prayer is the lungs through which holiness breathes. Prayer is not only the language of spiritual life, but also makes its very essence and forms its real character. O for a faith that will not shrink though pressed by every foe; That will not tremble on the brink of any earthly woe. Lord, give us such a faith as this ... whatever may come ... ~ Edward McKendree Bounds

In spite of all he had seen, Cass still believed in the fundamental decency of cats and men. He knew that God believed in it, too, in spite of all He'd seen – iin spite of all His grieving and all the lies told about Him down the bloody ages. He was God after all, and had made all creatures, and He had taken the noble chance of granting to one of them a will of its own, and in the end, the gift had been worth all the trouble. Maybe the right to choose was the best gift of all and the best proof of love. It was more precious even than life itself, for without the possibility of defeat, the victories would have no meaning. ~ Howard Bahr

In the nineteenth century one had to give all sorts of guarantees and lead an exemplary life in order to cleanse oneself in the eyes of the bourgeois of the sin of writing, for literature is, in essence, heresy. The situation has not changed except that it is now the Communists, that is, the qualified representatives of the proletariat, who as a matter of principle regard the writer as suspect. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

Not so the scientist. The very essence of his life is the service of truth. ~ Franz Boas

When philosophers use a word
"knowledge," "being," "object," "I," "proposition," "name"
and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?
What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

Some liberals think that describing any role that education gaps play in creating income inequality is some sort of sellout - that, in essence, you're telling the middle class, 'Tough luck; you should have stayed in college.' ~ Timothy Noah