Substance Quotes

• Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Roots, Personality, Suffering

  Miguel de Unamuno (2012). “Tragic Sense Of Life”, p.288, tredition

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• We must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives. We must take charge of our own destinies, design a life of substance and truly begin to live our dreams.

  Les Brown

  Success, Dream, Determination

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• Life is infinite energy coupled with limitless creative imagination. It is the invisible essence and substance of every visible form. Its nature is goodness, truth, wisdom and beauty, as well as energy and imagination. Our highest satisfaction comes from a sense of conscious union with this invisible Life. All human endeavor is an attempt to get back to first principles, to find such an inward wholeness that all sense of fear, doubt and uncertainty vanishes.

  Ernest Holmes

  Essence, Imagination, Creative

  Ernest Holmes (2007). “The Art of Life”, p.9, Penguin

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• Don't let life discourage you; everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was.

  Richard L. Evans

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the invisible spiritual substance, they grow and bring forth after their kind.

  Charles Fillmore

  Spiritual, Kind, Invisible

  Charles Fillmore (2009). “Prosperity”, p.104, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

  Carl Jung

  Friendship, Relationship, Positive

  Carl Gustav Jung (2001). “Modern Man in Search of a Soul”, p.49, Psychology Press

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• But, in the end, the books that surround me are the books that made me, through my reading (and misreading) of them; they fall in piles on my desk, they stack behind me on my shelves, they surprise me every time I look for one and find ten more I had forgotten about. I love their covers, their weight and their substance. And like the child I was, with the key to the world that reading gave me, it is still exciting for me to find a new book, open it at the first page and plunge in, head first, heart deep.

  Ramona Koval

  Education, Children, Book

  8 Copy quote

• We are completely unaware of our true nature because we identify ourselves with our body, our emotions and our thoughts, thus losing sight of our unchanging centre, which is pure consciousness. When we return to our true nature, our thoughts and perceptions no longer appear as modifications of a single substance, they come into being and subside like waves of the ocean.

  Jean Klein

  Spiritual, Ocean, Sight

  Jean Klein (2015). “Be Who You Are”, p.16, New Harbinger Publications

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• Morality is the basis of things and truth is the substance of all morality.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Truth, Motherhood, Morality

  Mahatma Gandhi (1994). “The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings”, p.17, Grove Press

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• High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Office, Decision, Intellectual

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• People of substance may sin without being exposed for their stolen pleasure; but servants and the poorer sort of women have seldom an opportunity of concealing a big belly, or at least the consequences of it.

  Bernard de Mandeville

  Opportunity, People, May

  "The Fable of the Bees". Book by Bernard Mandeville. Remark C, p. 66, 1732.

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• Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.

  John Henry Newman

  Evil, Excess, Corruption

  John Henry Newman, Dave Armstrong (2012). “The Quotable Newman: A Definitive Guide to His Central Thoughts and Ideas”, p.151, Sophia Institute Press

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• Lies are sufficient to breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.

  Francis Bacon

  Lying, Deceit, Opinion

  Francis Bacon, Richard Whately (1858). “Essays: With Annotations by Richard Whately”, p.538

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• Once and for all, I did not use steroids or any other illegal substance.

  Mark McGwire

  Use, Illegal, Steroid

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

  Aesop

  Reality, Focus And Concentration, Shadow

  "Aesop's Fables".

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• Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Life, Time, Fire

  "Other Inquisitions". Book by Jorge Luis Borges, 1952.

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• I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

  Ralph Ellison

  People, Black History, African American

  Invisible Man prologue (1952)

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• My 'fear' is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

  Franz Kafka

  Fear, Fearless

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• Time is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Fire, Time Management, Tigers

  Jorge Luis Borges (1964). “Other Inquisitions, 1937-1952”

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• The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual - when it begins to ignore the passions, the emotions - it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Life, War, Silly

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• Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral. Failure to distinguish clearly between the two is ruinous. Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. Preserve substance; modify form; know the difference.

  Dee Hock

  Ephemeral, Form, Endure

  "Dee Hock on Management" by M. Mitchell Waldrop, www.fastcompany.com. October 31, 1996.

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• Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.

  Robert South

  Heart, Iron, Guilt

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• Ideas get substance and value not by being discussed but by being lived.

  Hugh Kingsmill

  Ideas, Values

  Hugh Kingsmill (1949). “The Progress of a Biographer”

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• We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

  William Saroyan

  Congratulations, Wisdom Experience, Sobriety

  "My Heart's in the Highlands". Book by William Saroyan, 1939.

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• I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

  Ralph Ellison

  Men, People, Black History

  Invisible Man prologue (1952)

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