Essence
In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the entity or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept originates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression to ti ên einai, literally 'the what it was to be', or sometimes the shorter phrase to ti esti, literally 'the what it is,' for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word essentia (English "essence") to represent the whole expression. For Aristotle and his scholastic followers the notion of essence is closely linked to that of definition (horismos).
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Famous quotes containing the word essence:
“What essence is to generation, that truth is to belief.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all history.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The essence of lying is in deception, not in words.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)