Popular quotes about Solitude! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 9
For 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 ChejfecAll humans are frightened of their own solitude. But only in solitude can we learn to know ourselves, learn to handle our own eternal aloneness.
Han SuyinSolitude in the city is about the lack of other people or rather their distance beyond a door or wall, but in remote places it isnโt an absence but the presence of something else, a kind of humming silence in which solitude seems as natural to your species as to any other, words strange rocks you may or may not turn over.
Rebecca Solnitbeware 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 BukowskiTo live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit,l from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.
Henri NouwenSolitude 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.
Henri NouwenEven though I get a lot done with my solitude, and I make the best use of it possible, I always think solitude is an interlude in a period of time, which is populated by others.
Richard FordSolitude is not an absence of energy or action, as some believe, but is rather a boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul. In ancient times, purposeful solitude was both palliative and preventative. It was used to heal fatigue and to prevent weariness. It was also used as an oracle, as a way of listening to the inner self to solicit advice and guidance otherwise impossible to hear in the din of daily life.
Clarissa Pinkola EstesThere are times when you seek your solitude, and your solitude just wants to be left alone.
Robert BreaultThe necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain.
Rainer Maria RilkeIsolation 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 LaskasWhen society is made up of men who know no interior solitude it can no longer be held together by love: and consequently it is held together by a violent and abusive authority. But when men are violently deprived of the solitude and freedom which are their due, then society in which they live becomes putrid, it festers with servility, resentment and hate.
Thomas MertonA creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheI cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.
Jorge Luis BorgesIf the mind loves solitude, it has thereby acquired a loftier character, and it becomes still more noble when the taste is indulged in.
Wilhelm von HumboldtYou know how it is when two souls meet in a burst of ecstatic volubility, with hearts tickling to hear and to tell, to know everything, to reveal everything, the shared reverence for the other's otherness, a feeling of solitude radiantly snapped by full *contact* - all that?
Martin AmisIn the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?
Charles de GaulleIt's been a very remarkable year, and I feel very blessed. I lived an isolated lifestyle before the media. I lived a life of solitude and loyalty and commitment to my work. I just don't prioritize my life in the same way that other people do. The only thing that matters is my music and my performance.
Lady GagaInward solitude has outward manifestations. There is the freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from people but in order to hear the divine Whisper better.
Richard J. Foster...a condemned man who, at the hour of death, says or thinks that if the alternative were offered him of existing somewhere, on a height of rock or some narrow elevation, where only his two feet could stand, and round about him the ocean, perpetual gloom, perpetual solitude, perpetual storm, to remain there standing on a yard of surface for a lifetime, a thousand years, eternity! - rather would he live thus than die at once? Only live, live, live! - no matter how, only live!
Fyodor DostoevskyI think for many songwriter/performers, you need to go off by yourself and write the songs to begin with, but then you need people to bring them to life. So you have to be comfortable with solitude and also with being very social.
Alan LichtO Holy Spirit of God, abide with us; inspire all our thoughts; pervade our imaginations; suggest all our decisions; order all our doings. Be with us in our silence and in our speech, in our haste and in our leisure, in company and in solitude, in the freshness of the morning and in the weariness of the evening; and give us grace at all times humbly to rejoice in Thy mysterious companionship.
John BaillieI run because it's my passion, and not just a sport. Every time I walk out the door, I know why I'm going where I'm going and I'm already focused on that special place where I find my peace and solitude. Running, to me, is more than just a physical exercise... it's a consistent reward for victory!
Sasha AzevedoWhat Independence Has Come to Mean to Me: The Pain of Solitude. The Pleasure of Self-Knowledge
Vivian GornickIt has been said that no great work in literature or in science was ever wrought by a man who did not love solitude. We may lay it down as an elemental principle of religion, that no large growth in holiness was ever gained by one who did not take time to be often long alone with God.
Austin PhelpsThe 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 SchjeldahlCultivate solitude and quiet and a few sincere friends, rather than mob merriment, noise and thousands of nodding acquaintances.
William PowellSpend time for yourself, walk in solitude, refresh your mind and body so that you can spend time for others and walk with them! Spend time for yourself!
Mehmet Murat IldanThere are beauties of character which, like the night-blooming cereus, are closed against the glare and turbulence of every-day life, and bloom only in shade and solitude, and beneath the quiet stars.
Henry Theodore TuckermanI 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.
Jane HirshfieldFriendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.
Dag HammarskjoldGod is the solitude of men. There was only me: I alone decided to commit Evil; alone, I invented Good. I am the one who cheated, I am the one who performed miracles, I am the one accusing myself today, I alone can absolve myself; me, the man.
Jean-Paul SartreVirtue could see to do what virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where with her best nurse Contemplation She plumes her feathers and lets grow her wings, That in the various bustle of resort Were all-to ruffled, and sometimes impair'd. He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i' th' centre and enjoy bright day; But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the midday sun.
John MiltonSolitude offers a lot that being coupled or being in a group does not. It helps us learn what we are capable of.
Alix Kates ShulmanIn a culture in which interpersonal relationships are generally considered to provide the answer to every form of distress, it is sometimes difficult to persuade well-meaning helpers that solitude can be as therapeutic as emotional support.
Anthony StorrHowever softly we speak, God is so close to us that he can hear us; nor do we need wings to go in search of him, but merely to seek solitude and contemplate him within ourselves, without being surprised to find such a good Guest there.
John of the CrossSolitude is fine when you are at peace with yourself and have something definite to do.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheThe more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
Aldous HuxleyThe leaves hop, scraping on the ground. It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice. It is in this solitude, a syllable, Out of these gawky flitterings, Intones its single emptiness, The savagest hollow of winter-sound.
Wallace StevensIt took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper.
Erica JongWe must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.
Hermann Hesse