Quintessence Quotes

• It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Inspirational, Friendship, Wise

  Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Merton (1965). “Gandhi on Non-violence”, p.62, New Directions Publishing

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• Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence.

  Paracelsus

  Stars, Men, World

  Paracelsus (1967). “The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim, Called Paracelsus the Great: Hermetic medicine and hermetic philosophy”

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• This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

  William Shakespeare

  Moving, Angel, Men

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• Do not shorten the morning by getting up late; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Life, Morning, Looks

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “Counsels and Maxims: Top of Schopenhauer”, p.34, 谷月社

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• For books are more than books, they are the life, the very heart and core of ages past, the reason why men worked and died, the essence and quintessence of their lives.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Book, Heart, Past

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• Taste may be compared to that exquisite sense of the bee, which instantly discovers and extracts the quintessence of every flower, and disregards all the rest of it.

  Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

  Flower, May, Taste

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• The universal medicine for the Soul is the Supreme Reason and Absolute Justice; for the mind, mathematical and practical Truth; for the body, the Quintessence, a combination of light and gold.

  Albert Pike

  Light, Medicine, Justice

  Albert Pike “Morals and Dogma : Scottish Rite in Freemasonry”, Lulu.com

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• The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition.

  Hannah Arendt

  Nature, Earth, Human Condition

  Hannah Arendt (2013). “The Human Condition: Second Edition”, p.2, University of Chicago Press

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• Aristotle taught that stars are made of a different matter than the four earthly elements— a quintessence— that also happens to be what the human psyche is made of. Which is why man’s spirit corresponds to the stars. Perhaps that’s not a very scientific view, but I do like the idea that there’s a little starlight in each of us.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Stars, Men, Views

  Lisa Kleypas (2010). “Love in the Afternoon”, p.41, Macmillan

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• It seems not to have been written. It is the quintessence of life. It is the basic truth.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Truth, Has Beens, Written

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• For I am every dead thing In whom love wrought new alchemy For his art did express A quintessence even from nothingness, From dull privations, and lean emptiness He ruined me, and I am re-begot Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.

  John Donne

  Love, Art, Darkness

  John Donne, John Carey (2000). “John Donne: The Major Works”, p.116, Oxford University Press, USA

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• What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

  William Shakespeare

  Beauty, Moving, Angel

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• What is wild cannot be bought or sold, borrowed or copied. It is. Unmistakeable, unforgettable, unshamable, elemental as earth and ice, water, fire and air, a quintessence, pure spirit, resolving into no constituents.
  Don't waste your wildness: it is precious and necessary.

  Jay Griffiths

  Fire, Ice Water, Air

  Jay Griffiths (2007). “Wild: An Elemental Journey”, p.168, Penguin UK

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• While briskly to each patriot lip
  Walks eager round the inspiring flip;
  Delicious draught, whose pow'rs inherit
  The quintessence of public spirit!

  John Trumbull

  Drinking, Flip, Lips

  John Trumbull (1839). “M'Fingal: a modern epic poem, in four cantos”, p.56

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• This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o-erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.

  William Shakespeare

  Fire, Air, Space

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• We were the quintessence of athletic atrocity.

  Mike Newlin

  Athlete, Athletic, Atrocities

  7 Copy quote

• All my life one of my greatest desires has been to travel-to see and touch unknown countries, to swim in unknown seas, to circle the globe, observing new lands, seas, people, and ideas with insatiable appetite, to see everything for the first time and for the last time, casting a slow, prolonged glance, then to close my eyes and feel the riches deposit themselves inside me calmly or stormily according to their pleasure, until time passes them at last through its fine sieve, straining the quintessence out of all the joys and sorrows.

  Nikos Kazantzakis

  Country, Eye, Sea

  36 Copy quote

• This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.

  William Shakespeare

  Vapour, Earth, Cynicism

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [316]

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• Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Morning, Silly, Sleep

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2015). “Counsels and Maxims: Top of Schopenhauer”, p.34, 谷月社

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• The juice of the grape is the liquid quintessence of concentrated sunbeams.

  Thomas Love Peacock

  Food, Wine, Juice

  Thomas Love Peacock (1875). “The Works of Thomas Love Peacock: Including His Novels, Poems, Fugitive Pieces, Criticisms, Etc”

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• It is an understatement to say that in this society injustices abound: in truth, it is itself the quintessence of injustice.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Injustice, This Society, Understatement

  "History and Utopia". Book by Emile M. Cioran, 1960.

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• Symbols are specific acts or figures, while myths develop and elaborate these symbols into a story which contains characters and several episodes. The myth is thus more inclusive. But both symbol and myth have the same function psychologically; they are man's way of expressing the quintessence of his experience - his way of seeing his life, his self-image and his relations to the world of his fellow men and of nature - in a total figure which at the same moment carries the vital meaning of this experience.

  Rollo May

  Character, Men, Self

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• Then came a moment of renaissance,
  I looked up - you again are there,
  A fleeting vision, the quintessence
  Of all that`s beautiful and rare.

  Alexander Pushkin

  Beautiful, Famous Love, Vision

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• The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain… Music expresses only the quintessence of life and its events, never these themselves.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Pain, Reality, Depth

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “101 Facts of life”, p.41, Publishdrive

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• When I was young, I thought confidence could be earned with perfection. Now I know that you don't earn it; you claim it. And you do that by loving the wacky, endlessly optimistic, enthusiasticall y uninhibited free spirit that is the essence of style, the quintessence of heart, and uniquely you.

  Cecelie Berry

  Heart, Optimistic, Essence

  6 Copy quote