One of the biggest mistakes that mankind has made and that is still made often by various people and teachers, is the idea that things have an essence. Or even that something like an essence really exists. Of course, essence is a nominalization and as such a distortion of reality.
In short, the essence of a thing, too, is only an opinion about the ‘thing’. Or rather: ‘This is considered to be’ is the real ‘This is’, the sole ‘This is’.
Notebook 2, autumn 1886 – autumn 1886 paragraph 150