Solitude Quotes - Page 16

• I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Lonely, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.88, Courier Corporation

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• We are all prone to the malady of the introvert who with the manifold spectacle of the world spread out before him, turns away and gazes only upon the emptiness within.

  Bertrand Russell

  Advice, World, Emptiness

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.60, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I am never less alone than when alone.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Loneliness

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (1899). “M. Tullii Ciceronis”

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• Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mad, Remember, Virtue

  "Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. during the last twenty years of his life".

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• This great misfortune, to be incapable of solitude.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Capability, Incapable, Misfortunes

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• Working conditions for me have always been those of the monastic life: solitude and frugality. Except for frugality, they are contrary to my nature, so much so that work is a violence I do to myself.

  Albert Camus

  Violence, Working Conditions, Monastic Life

  Albert Camus, Jean Grenier (2003). “Correspondence, 1932-1960”, p.195, U of Nebraska Press

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• Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  Philosophical, Greatness, Men

  Arthur Schopenhauer (2016). “101 Facts of life”, p.26, Publishdrive

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• Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.

  Louise Erdrich

  Love, Life, Strength

  "Louise Erdrich and 'The Painted Drum'". "Weekend Edition Sunday" with Liane Hansen, www.npr.org. October 02, 2005.

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• Solitude is unbearable for those who can not bear themselves.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Unbearable, Bears, Can Not

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Because she favours solitude and indwelling, an artist can live a significantly more claustrophobic life that she had ever intended.

  Eric Maisel

  Creativity, Being Alone, Artist

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• The 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 Hessler

  Loneliness, Heart, Night

  "Go West". www.newyorker.com. April 19, 2010.

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• He who understands humanity seeks solitude

  Ali ibn Abi Talib

  Humanity

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• Solitude is an ocean with wonderful places hidden in its depths.

  Isaac of Nineveh

  Wise, Wisdom, Clever

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• Society is a republic. When an individual endeavors to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by means of ridicule or of calumny. No one shall be more virtuous or more intellectually gifted than others. Whoever, by the irresistable force of genius, rises above the common herd is certain to be ostracized by society, which will pursue him with such merciless derision and detraction that at last he will be compelled to retreat into the solitude of his thoughts.

  Heinrich Heine

  Mean, Individuality, Genius

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• Between madness and sanity, there is a shifting boundary. It is impossible to explain. Time slows down and you have to try to fill it. You don't have anything but solitude.

  Jose Mujica

  Trying, Down And, Shifting

  Source: www.sbs.com.au

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• Solitude offers a lot that being coupled or being in a group does not. It helps us learn what we are capable of.

  Alix Kates Shulman

  Groups, Doe, Helping

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• Many people spend the ends of their lives alone, and probably a lot of years in the middle of their lives, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to experience the rewards of solitude.

  Alix Kates Shulman

  Opportunity, Years, People

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• If you meet God in solitude, you discover the God you meet is the God who embraces all people.

  Henri Nouwen

  People, Embrace, Ifs

  Source: archives.wineskins.org

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• I feel strongly that the God we meet in solitude is always the God who calls us to community.

  Henri Nouwen

  Community, Feels

  Source: archives.wineskins.org

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• If you start with community and want to be faithful to community, you have to realize that what binds you together is not mutual compatibility or common tasks, but God. In order to stay in touch with that call to community, we always have to return to solitude.

  Henri Nouwen

  Order, Community, Faithful

  Source: archives.wineskins.org

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