Popular quotes about Solitude! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
It was solitude, but it was solitude that wasn't lonely. Solitude that could sort things out. And he hadn't had that in ages.
Patrick NessFor me parks are good when first of all, they're not impeccable, and when solitude has appropriated them in such a way that solitude itself becomes an emblem, a defining trait for walkers, sporadic at best, who in my opinion should be irrevocably lost or absorbed in thought, and a bit confused, too, as when one walks through a space that's at once alien and familiar.
Sergio ChejfecThere is a difference between solitude and isolation. One is connected and one isn't. Solitude replenishes, isolation diminishes.
Henry Cloudbeware 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
Charles BukowskiEveryone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.
Wislawa SzymborskaSolitude is very different from a 'time-out' from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.
Henri NouwenIn that Macondo forgotten even by the birds, where the dust and the heat had become so strong that it was difficult to breathe, secluded by solitude and love and by the solitude of love in a house where it was almost impossible to sleep because of the noise of the red ants, Aureliano, and Amaranta รrsula were the only happy beings, and the most happy on the face of the earth.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezThe true use of Shakespeare or of Cervantes, of Homer or of Dante, of Chaucer or of Rabelais, is to augment one's own growing inner self. . . . The mind's dialogue with itself is not primarily a social reality. All that the Western Canon can bring one is the proper use of one's own solitude, that solitude whose final form is one's confrontation with one's own mortality.
Harold BloomIsolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart.
Jeanne Marie LaskasThanks to the night, we long for the day; thanks to the day, we long for the night! The purpose of the opposites is to make us long for something! Thanks to the crowds, we long for the solitude; thanks to the solitude, we long for the crowds!
Mehmet Murat IldanI can tell you that solitude Is not all exaltation, inner space Where the soul breathes and work can be done. Solitude exposes the nerve, Raises up ghosts. The past, never at rest, flows through it.
May SartonWe Christians must simplify our lives or lose untold treasures on earth and in eternity. Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. The need for solitude and quietness was never greater than it is today.
Aiden Wilson TozerAll human beings go through a previous life... Who knows how many fleshly forms the heir of heaven occupies before he can be brought to understand the value of that silence and solitude of spiritual worlds?
Honore de BalzacIn solitude, at last, weโre able to let God define us the way we are always supposed to be definedโby relationship: the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence itself. Not performance but presence
Richard RohrPolitically I am neither left nor right! And this kind of political-ethical standpoint-- being in the middle-- usually brings about seclusion and isolation! But now I do not mind it anymore and, instead, I work more and more in my self-made solitude!
Javad AlizadehWe in the "developed" world seem to have many auditory strategies that insulate us from the presence of silence, simplicity, and solitude. When I return to Western culture after time in desert, mountain or forest, I discover how we have filled our world with a multiplicity of noises, a symphony of forgetfulness that keeps our won thoughts and realizations, feelings and intuitions out of audible range.
Joan HalifaxThere comes a moment during which almost every girl or boy falls into melancholy; they are tormented by a vague inquietude which rests on everything and finds nothing to calm it. They seek solitude; they weep; the silence to be found in cloister attracts them: the image of peace that seems to reign in religious houses seduces them. They mistake the first manifestations of a developing sexual nature for the voice of God calling them to Himself; and it is precisely when nature is inciting them that they embrace a fashion of life contrary to nature's wish.
Denis DiderotSo the only environment the artist needs is whatever peace, whatever solitude, and whatever pleasure he can get at not too high a cost. All the wrong environment will do is run his blood pressure up; he will spend more time being frustrated or outraged. My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.
William FaulknerTrue character arises from a deeper well than religion. It is the internalization of moral principles of a society, augmented by those tenets personally chosen by the individual, strong enough to endure through trials of solitude and adversity. The principles are fitted together into what we call integrity, literally the integrated self, wherein personal decisions feel good and true. Character is in turn the enduring source of virtue. It stands by itself and excites admiration in others.
E. O. WilsonLittle as she was addicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from the empty noises of her life.
Edith WhartonSelden and Lily stood still, accepting the unreality of the scene as a part of their own dream-like sensations. It would not have surprised them to feel a summer breeze on their faces, or to see the lights among the boughs reduplicated in the arch of a starry sky. The strange solitude about them was no stranger than the sweetness of being alone in it together.
Edith WhartonSpiritual superiority [consists in] deep dedication ... in the form of the most rigorous training, as commitment, resistance, solitude, and love.
Martin HeideggerThe artist is a strange being. I think it's safe to say that a real artist is conscious of having a personal singularity that is partly a blessing and partly a curse. An artist enjoys and suffers from isolation. As solitude, isolation can nurture. It can also destroy.
Peter SchjeldahlI shall lead you through the loneliness, the solitude you will not understand; but it is my shortcut to your soul.
Thomas MertonJust like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reasons, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five or six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women, others with none. Itโs whatโs known as โthe law of the marketโโฆ In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude.
Michel HouellebecqIf you write, good ideas must come welling up into you so that you have something to write. If good ideas do not come at once, or for a long time, do not be troubled at all. Wait for them. Put down little ideas no matter how insignificant they are. But do not feel, any more, guilty about idleness and solitude.
Brenda UelandSocial life is filled with doubts and vain aspirings; solitude, when the imagination is dethroned, is turned to weariness and ennui.
Letitia Elizabeth LandonSolitude is the soul's holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.
Katrina KenisonOnly what touches us closely preoccupies us. We prepare in solitude to face it. (The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion)
Edmond JabesThe American appetite for loneliness impressed me, and there was something about this solitude that freed conversation. One night at a bar, I met a man, and within five minutes he explained that he had just been released from prison. Another drinker told me that his wife had passed away, and he had recently suffered a heart attack, and now he hoped that he would die within the year. I learned that there's no reliable small talk in America; at any moment a conversation can become personal.
Peter HesslerSorrow preys upon Its solitude, and nothing more diverts it From its sad visions of the other world Than calling it at moments back to this. The busy have no time for tears.
Lord ByronWilderness 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.
Sigurd F. OlsonA man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude.
Michel de MontaigneIf we can't even spend a short amount of time each day with God in solitude, our spiritual formation will be seriously stunted.
Tricia RhodesThe more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
Aldous Huxley