It reads : "Those who are not of a great essence, whatever work they perform, nothing comes of it"5 (Reden der Unterscheidung, No. 4).
It is toward the great essence of man that we are thinking, inasmuch as man's essence belongs to the essence of Being and is needed by Being to keep safe the coming to presence of Being into its truth.
Therefore, what is necessary above all is this: that beforehand we ponder the essence of Being as that which is worthy of thinking; that beforehand, in thinking this, we experience to what extent we are called upon first to trace a path for such experiencing and to prepare that path as a way into that which till now has been impassable.
All this we can do only it before considering the question that is seemingly always the most immediate one and the only urgent one, What shall we do? we ponder this : How must we think? For thinking is genuine activity, genuine taking a hand, if to take a hand means to lend a hand to the essence, the coming to presence, of Being. This means : to prepare (build) for the coming to presence of Being that abode in the midst of whatever is6 into which Being brings itself and its essence to utterance in language. Language first gives to every purposeful deliberation its ways and its byways. Without language, there would be lacking to every doing every dimension in which it could bestir itself and be effective.
5. Die nitt von grossem wesen sind, was werk die wirken, da wirt nit us.
6. inmitten des Seienden. "Whatever is" here translates Seienden, the present participle of the German verb sein (to be) used as a noun. The necessity in English of translating Sein, when it appears as a noun, with "Being" precludes the possibility of the use of the most obvious translation, "being," for Seiendes. A phrase such as the "Being of being" or "Being in the midst of being" would clearly present unacceptable difficulties. Heidegger does not intend das Seiende to refer primarily to any mere aggregate of entities or beings, let alone to a particular being. The word connotes for him, first of all, the intricately interrelated entirety of all that is, in whose "is" Being is made manifest. The verbal force of the participle is always significantly present. In these essays, the translation of das Seiende will vary according to the demands of particular contexts. The translations "what is," "whatever is," "that which is," "what is in being," "whatever is in being," and "that which is in being" will ordinarily be used.