Esse Quotes

Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. Pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. (Edmund Burke)
esse est percipi, and he recognizes himself as being only insofar as he is perceived. View quote
Jean-Paul Sartre
I maintain, therefore, that just as there is in Cartesianism a methodical idealism, the kind that starts with nosse [knowing], there can be a methodical realism, the kind that starts with esse. View quote
Etienne Gilson
The only certainty is that nothing is certain. (Fuller version: This series of instances entangles unforeseeing mortality, so that among these things but one thing is in the least certain-that nothing certain exists, and that nothing is more pitiable, or more presnmptuous, than man! In Latin: Quae singula inprovidam mortalitatem involvunt, solum ut inter ista vel certu(m) sit nihil esse certi nec quicquam miserius homine aut superbius. Some sources have "certu", others "certum".) View quote
Pliny the Elder