Solitude Quotes

The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.

It is in solitude that we discover that being is more important than having and that we are worth more than the results of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared.

When you are alone, bless the solitude; when you are with someone, bless the togetherness! Think of the seagull: It flies alone happily; it flies with another happily too! Solitude is a food; togetherness is a food; man needs both and he must be happy with both!

However 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.

Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but “steal” some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.

Loneliness is one thing, solitude another.

The highest form of love is to be the protector of another person’s solitude.

The problem is no longer getting people to express themselves, but providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people from expressing themselves, but rather, force them to express themselves. What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, or ever rarer, the thing that might be worth saying.

May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.

Lately I've been thinking about who I want to love, and how I want to love, and why I want to love the way I want to love, and what I need to learn to love that way, and how I need to become to become the kind of love I want to be. And when I break it all down, when I whittle it into a single breath, it essentially comes out like this: before I die, I want to be somebody's favorite hiding place, the place they can put everything they need to survive, every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, and be absolutely certain I will keep it safe. I will keep it safe.

Settle yourself in solitude, and you will come upon God in yourself.

Oh you who have been removed from God in his solitude by the abyss of time, how can you expect to reach him without dying?

Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.

He who understands humanity seeks solitude

I felt myself in a solitude so frightful that I contemplated suicide. What held me back was the idea that no one, absolutely no one, would be moved by my death, that I would be even more alone in death than in life.

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

All I can say in my solitude is, May Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one - American, English, Turk - who will help to heal this open sore of the world.

Solitude makes us tougher towards ourselves and tenderer towards others. In both ways it improves our character.

Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.

But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.

One needs solitude and quiet to think. The cacophony of modern culture is designed to make that impossible.

I am happiest when I am alone.

He walked on in silence, the solitary sound of his footsteps echoing in his head, as in a deserted street, at dawn. His solitude was so complete, beneath a lovely sky as mellow and serene as a good conscience, amid that busy throng, that he was amazed at his own existence; he must be somebody else's nightmare, and whoever it was would certainly awaken soon.

Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, & loneliness.

For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude

Here, in my solitude, I have the feeling that I contain too much humanity.

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.

Hour of nostalgia, hour of happiness, hour of solitude.

It is always what I have already said: always the wish that you may find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe; that you may acquire more and more confidence in that which is difficult, and in your solitude among others. And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case.

Embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant.

The important thing is to know why we want to dance. We dance a solitude that we have inside us and cannot occupy with anything. This gap, that emptiness to which we put movement is the TANGO.

Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

The individual who has experienced solitude will not easily become a victim of mass suggestion.

Nothing could be more pleasant than to live in solitude, enjoy the spectacle of nature, and occasionally read some book.

Time for solitude. God, I ask you to remake my heart. Fill it with what You love. Remove from it what You don’t. And mend what I’ve broken.

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.

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

My public life is before you; and I know you will believe me when I say, that when I sit down in solitude to the labours of my profession, the only questions I ask myself are, What is right? What is just? What is for the public good?

As an introvert, you can be your own best friend or your worst enemy. The good news is we generally like our own company, a quality that extroverts often envy. We find comfort in solitude and know how to soothe ourselves.

The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.

I hate who steals my solitude, without really offer me in exchange company.

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.

I like silence; I'm a gregarious loner and without the solitude, I lose my gregariousness.

In religions which have lost their creative spark, the gods eventually become no more than poetic motifs or ornaments for decorating human solitude and walls.

Even if loving meant leaving, or solitude, or sorrow, love was worth every penny of its price.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

There is no free society without silence, without the internal and external spaces of solitude in which the individual freedom can develop.

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

Imagination, the traitor of the mind, has taken my solitude and slain it.

He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.