Unessential Quotes & Sayings

If the artist's will is not strong he will see all kinds of unessential things. — Robert Henri

Of all the phantoms fleeting in the mist
Of time, though meagre all and ghostly thin;
Most unsubstantial, unessential shade
Was earthly fame. — Robert Pollok

That others grasp what I have in mind seems unessential, at least as long as they have something else in theirs. — Alexander Calder

The other night we talked about literature's elimination of the unessential, so that we are given a concentrated "dose" of life. I said, almost indignantly, "That's the danger of it, it prepares you to live, but at the same time, it exposes you to disappointments because it gives a heightened concept of living, it leaves out the dull or stagnant moments. You, in your books, also have a heightened rhythm, and a sequence of events so packed with excitement that I expected all your life to be delirious, intoxicated."
Literature is an exaggeration, a dramatization, and those who are nourished on it (as I was) are in great danger of trying to approximate an impossible rhythm. Trying to live up to Dostoevskian scenes every day. And between writers there is a straining after extravagance. We incite each other to jazz-up our rhythm. — Anais Nin

It's not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential. — Bruce Lee

Simplicity is NOT boring. Simplicity is not self-denial. It is an indulgence, providing you with a wealth of time and space.
Simplicity IS discerning the essential from the unessential. Simplicity is having room for the unexpected. It is savoring life.
Most of all, simplicity is freedom: It's freedom to choose what you want in your life because you're not letting in everything that shows up. It's freedom to do what you want because you're not already committed to more obligations than you can handle and the maintenance of more objects than you'll ever use. — Victoria Moran

Edna had once told Madame Ratignolle that she would never sacrifice herself for her children; or for anyone.
I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. — Kate Chopin

In all literary history there is no such figure as Dante, no such homogeneousness of life and works, such loyalty to ideas, such sublime irrecognition of the unessential. — James Russell Lowell

It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Govt. from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.
[Letter to the Reverend Jasper Adams, January 1, 1832] — James Madison

The success of everything depends on intuition, the capacity of seeing things in a way which afterwards proves to be true, even though it cannot be established at the moment, and of grasping the essential fact, discarding the unessential, even though one can give no account of the principles by which this is done. — Joseph A. Schumpeter

I would give up the unessential; I would give up my money, I would give up my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me. — Kate Chopin