If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves? as they must be if the being subjected to the inconsistent, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of men, be the perfect condition of slavery? and if the essence of freedom consists, as our masters say it does, in having a standing rule to live by? And why is slavery so much condemnedandstroveagainst inonecase, andsohighly applauded, and held so necessary and so sacred in another?

-Astell, Mary
  Some Reflections upon MarriageOccasion'd by the Duke and Duchess of Mazarine's Case which is also consider'd, preface (1706 edn).

The essence of Toryism is enjoyment†but as far as communicating and establishing your creed are concernedötrya little pleasure. The way to keep up old customs is, to enjoy old customs; the way to be satisfied with the present state of things is, to enjoy that state of things.

-Bagehot,Walter
  Essay on Macaulay.

How beautiful is all this visible world! How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride.

-Rochdale
  Manfred, act1, sc.2.

The mother's yearning, thatcompletest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man.

-Eliot, George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans
  Adam Bede, ch.43.

The essence of technology is by no means anything technological.

-Heidegger, Martin
  'The Question Concerning Technology', collected in Basic Writings (1977).

Nothing is more futile than theorizing about music. No doubt there are laws, mathematically strict laws, but these laws are not music; they are only its conditions† The essence of music is revelation.

-Heine, Heinrich
  Letters on the French Stage.

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

-Lowell, Amy
  'The Boston  Atheneum'.

He [John Hampden] knew that the essence of war is violence, and that moderation in war is imbecility.

-1st Baron
  'Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden', in the Edinburgh Review, Dec.

   For Spirits when they please Can either sex assume, or both; so soft And uncompounded is their essence pure, Not tied or manacled with joint or limb, Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, Can execute their airy purposes, And works of love or enmity fulfil.

-Milton,John
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.1, l.423^31.

Hail holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born. Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

-Milton,John
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.3, l.5^6.

Styleandstructurearetheessence ofa book; great ideas are hogwash.

-Nabokov,Vladimir
  Interview in the Paris Review, Summer.

Science proceeds by successive answers to questions more and more subtle, coming nearer and nearer to the very essence of phenomena.

-Pasteur, Louis
c.1856  EŁ  tudes sur la bie'  re, ch.6 (translated by Rene¤   Dubois).

Ce qu'ils ont en commun, c'est simplement le fait qu'ils estiment que l'existence pre¤  ce'  de l'essence, ou, si vous voulez, qu'il faut partir de la subjectivite¤  . What [existentialists] have in common is simply the fact that they believe that existence comes before essenceöor, if you will, that we must begin from the subjective.

-Sartre,Jean-Paul
  L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism and Humanism,1948) (translated by Philip Mairet).

Qu'est-ce que signifie que l'existence pre¤  ce'  de l'essence? Cela signifie que l'homme existe d'abord, se rencontre, surgit dans le monde, et qu'il se de¤  finit apre'  s. What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? Wemeanthat manfirst of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the worldöand defines himself afterwards.

-Sartre,Jean-Paul
  L'Existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism and Humanism,1948) (translated by Philip Mairet).

  He read partly for information, partly for comparison, partly for insight, partly for the sheer joy of felicitous statement.He delighted particularly inquotationswhich distilled the essence of an argument.

-Schlesinger, Arthur M(eier),Jr
  Of John F Kennedy. AThousand Days.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  PastorAnderson toJudith Anderson. The Devil's Disciple, act 2.

After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is the essence which takes its place as life's redemption.

-Stevens,Wallace
  Opus Posthumous, Aphorisms,'Adagia'.

The essence of Christianity is the appeal to the life of Christ as a revelation of the nature of God and of his agency in the world. The record is fragmentary, inconsistent and uncertain† But there can be no doubt as to the elements in the record that have evoked the best in human nature. The Mother, the Child and the bare manger: the lowly man, homeless and self- forgetful, with his message of peace, love and sympathy: the suffering, the agony, the tender words as life ebbed, the final despair: and the whole with the authority of supreme victory.

-Whitehead, Alfred North
 Adventures of Ideas.

The poet gives us his essence, but prose takes the mould of the body and mind entire.

-Woolf, (Adeline) Virginia ne¤  e Stephen
The Captain's Death Bed,'Reading' (published1950).