We read to understand, or to begin to understand. We cannot do but to read. Reading almost as much as breathing, is our essential function. Alberto Manguel
A great writer has a high respect for values. His essential function is to raise life to the dignity of thought, and this he does by giving it a shape. André Maurois
The two party electoral system performs the essential function of helping to legitimate the existing social order. Michael Parenti
Problem solving has traditionally been taken to be an essential function of management. Through systems thinking, however, we have come to doubt the existence of problems and solutions to them. Russell L. Ackoff
The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind. D. H. Lawrence
The essential function of the State is to maintain peace, justice, law, and order, and to protect the individual citizen against aggression, violence, theft, and fraud. Henry Hazlitt