Quotes About Solitude

I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each shall stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation.

beware the average man the average woman beware their love, their love is average seeks average but there is genius in their hatred there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you to kill anybody not wanting solitude not understanding solitude they will attempt to destroy anything that differs from their own not being able to create art they will not understand art they will consider their failure as creators only as a failure of the world

Writers are egotists. All artists are. They can’t be altruists and get their work done. And writers love to whine about the Solitude of the Author’s Life, and lock themselves into cork-lined rooms or droop around in bars in order to whine better. But although most writing is done in solitude, I believe that it is done, like all the arts, for an audience. That is to say, with an audience. All the arts are performance arts, only some of them are sneakier about it than others.

No general description of the mode of advance of human knowledge can be just which leaves out of account the social aspect of knowledge. That is of its very essence. What a thing society is! The workingman, with his trade union, knows that. Men and women moving in polite society understand it, still better. But Bohemians, like me, whose work is done in solitude, are apt to forget that not only is a man as a whole little better than a brute in solitude, but also that everything that bears any important meaning to him must receive its interpretation from social considerations.

You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again, "Solitude, solitude." And You have turned around and thrown the world in my lap. You have told me, "Leave all things and follow me," and then You have tied half of New York to my foot like a ball and chain. You have got me kneeling behind that pillar with my mind making a noise like a bank. Is that contemplation?

The fear of your own solitude, of its vast surface and its infinity… Remorse is the voice of solitude. And what does this whispering voice say? Everything in us that is not human anymore.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

Alone let him constantly meditate in solitude on that which is salutary for his soul, for he who meditates in solitude attains supreme bliss.

What's agitating about solitude is the inner voice telling you that you should be mated to somebody, that solitude is a mistake. The inner voice doesn't care about who you find. It just keeps pestering you, tormenting you.

Solitude is so necessary both for society and for the individual that when society fails to provide sufficient solitude to develop the inner life of the persons who compose it, they rebel and seek false solitudes.

There is no insurmountable solitude. All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are. And we must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence in order to reach forth to the enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song - but in this dance or in this song there are fulfilled the most ancient rites of our conscience in the awareness of being human and of believing in a common destiny.

Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.

The lover`s discourse was of an extreme solitude. The solitude was extreme because it wasn`t physical. It was extreme because you felt it while in the company of the person you loved. It was extreme because it was in your head, the most solitary of places.

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

Ah! I need solitude. I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon - to behold and commune with something grander than man. Their mere distance and unprofanedness is an infinite encouragement. it is with infinite yearning and aspiration that I seek solitude, more and more resolved and strong; but with a certain weakness that I seek society ever.

I highly recommend setting aside pockets of time during each day for solitude. You might have only five or ten minutes, but be alone and uninterrupted. And then sometime each week devote an extended time - at least one hour - to reconnect with your soul. How and when you do it is a very personal thing, but plan it because solitude doesn't happen on its own. Make it a priority in your life.

It is, indeed, a fact that, in the midst of society and sociability every evil inclination has to place itself under such great restraint, don so many masks, lay itself so often on the procrustean bed of virtue, that one could well speak of a martyrdom of the evil man. In solitude all this falls away. He who is evil is at his most evil in solitude: which is where he is at his best - and thus to the eye of him who sees everywhere only a spectacle also at his most beautiful.

I believe that around us there is only one word on all sides, one immense word which reveals our solitude and extinguishes our radiance: Nothing! I believe that that word does not point to our insignificance or our unhappiness, but on the contrary to our fulfillment and our divinity, since everything is in ourselves.

Solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur is the cradle of thought and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society can ill do without.

I think writers have to be able to enjoy solitude rather than just endure it. I've always enjoyed being left alone with my imagination, ever since I was a kid.

In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.

I hold the most archaic values on earth ... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude.... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.

Our religious activities should be ordered in such a way as to have plenty of time for the cultivation of the fruits of solitude and silence.

Solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual; but modern enterprise and invention have, through invasions upon his privacy, subjected him to mental pain and distress.

Life is a solitude.

A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.

Spiritual superiority [consists in] deep dedication ... in the form of the most rigorous training, as commitment, resistance, solitude, and love.

Solitude would be ideal if you could pick the people to avoid.

If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick-bed. How the patient lords it there!

And Vin liked solitude. When you're alone, no one can betray you

Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches; yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.

Each of us is born with a share of purity, predestined to be corrupted by our commerce with mankind, by that sin against solitude.

Cultivate solitude and quiet and a few sincere friends, rather than mob merriment, noise and thousands of nodding acquaintances.

I require silence to write the way an apple tree requires winter to make fruit. Being with people is intimate and joyous, but at some point, I'll wander off by myself. The paradox is that what began in childhood as an act of necessary solitude has led me straight to a life with others, in which I fly to China or Lithuania or northern Minnesota to read my poems and talk with other people who love language made into a lathe on which a life can be tuned and be turned.

Solitude is the soul's holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

Imagination is strong in a man when that particular function of the brain which enables him to observe is roused to activity without any necessary excitement of the sense. Accordingly, we find that imagination is active just in proportion as our sense are not excited by external objects. A long period of solitude, whether in prison or in a sick room; quiet, twilight, darkness-these are the things that promote its activity; and under their influence it comes into play of itself.

Only what touches us closely preoccupies us. We prepare in solitude to face it. (The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion)

The cat makes himself the companion of your hours of solitude, melancholy and toil.

Wilderness can be appreciated only by contrast, and solitude understood only when we have been without it. We cannot separate ourselves from society, comradeship, sharing and love. Unless we can contribute something from wilderness experience, derive some solace or peace to share with others, then the real purpose is defeated.

It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.

The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.

As for the dispute about solitude and society, any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plane at the base of a mountain, instead of climbing steadily to its top.

In life there are certain sores which, like a kind of canker, slowly erode the soul in solitude.

Solitude with God repairs the damage done by the fret and noise and clamour of the world.

The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.We won't have the courage to go into that terrifying place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.

If we can't even spend a short amount of time each day with God in solitude, our spiritual formation will be seriously stunted.

Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society's hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.