Solitude Quotes - Page 20

• A book is solitude, privacy; it is a way of holding the self apart from the crush of the outer world.

  Sven Birkerts

  Crush, Book, Self

  Sven Birkerts (2006). “The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age”, p.189, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build on the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all. Thus a man supported by faith, hope, and charity, with an unshaken hold upon them does not need the scriptures. . . And many live by these three things in solitude without books.

  Saint Augustine

  Book, Men, Thinking

  "People of the book" by Richard Harries, www.theguardian.com. October 13, 2007.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  John of the Cross

  Wings, Needs, Guests

  254 Copy quote

• 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.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Moving, Men, Essence

  5 Copy quote

• Solitude is a condition best enjoyed in company.

  Eleanor Catton

  Company, Enjoyed, Conditions

  Eleanor Catton (2013). “The Luminaries”, p.543, Granta Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I live now in solitude and am able to use my time reflecting on the past and preparing for death. I cannot put away the thought of the Indians and in my ambition I fly to the Rockies.

  Rose Philippine Duchesne

  Ambition, Past, Use

  6 Copy quote

• I love my solitude, and I would love it still more if I had more of it.

  Rose Philippine Duchesne

  Stills, Ifs

  8 Copy quote

• Debates conceal rather than reveal the truth. Truth is revealed in solitude.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Debate, Truth Is

  41 Copy quote

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

  Theophile Gautier

  Cat, Toil, Melancholy

  21 Copy quote

• I, who had had my heart full for hours, took advantage of an early moment of solitude, to cry in it very bitterly. Suddenly a little hairy head thrust itself from behind my pillow into my face, rubbing its ears and nose against me in a responsive agitation, and drying the tears as they came.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Heart, Tears, Agitation

  4 Copy quote

• A man is never alone, not only because he is with himself and his own thoughts, but because he is with the Devil, who ever consorts with our solitude.

  Thomas Browne

  Men, Devil

  Sir Thomas Browne (1845). “Religio Medici: to which is Added Hydriotaphia, Or Urn-burial: A Discourse on Sepulchral Urns”, p.137

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is-solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Long, Life Is, Secluded

  Rainer Maria Rilke, John J. L. Mood (1994). “Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties: Translations and Considerations”, p.38, W. W. Norton & Company

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Very few people can write in a crowd. This is a very solitary occupation. I have known people more talented than me who never made it. And the primary reason was always that they couldn't stand to be alone for several hours a day. Any writer worth anything has mastered the art. The art of solitude.

  Tom Robbins

  Art, Writing, People

  4 Copy quote

• They make solitude, which they call peace.

  Tacitus

  10 Copy quote

• I need solitude, which is to say, recovery, return to my self, the breath of a free, light, playful air.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Recovery, Light, Air

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2010). “On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo”, p.233, Vintage

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• That's a terrifying prospect for myself, and I'm sure many other people, as well. We leave TVs on in our house. I listen to my record player, constantly, to just hear music. I'm really intrigued by the idea of solitude. I'm excited about that.

  Katee Sackhoff

  Player, Ideas, People

  Source: collider.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• One would think America big enough to set aside wilderness preserves for the many of our citizens who seek to escape the incessant crowd, to search for solace in solitude amidst a sanctuary far removed from the banality of beer ads and cigarette commercials.

  Frank Church

  Beer, Thinking, America

  11 Copy quote

• Solitude is an essential quality of wilderness.

  Robert Lucas, Jr.

  Quality, Essentials, Wilderness

  20 Copy quote

• My music is very personal. I've created it in solitude. I face a white wall and beller. I like that sound - the expression of loneliness. That's what it's all about.

  Dwight Yoakam

  Wall, Loneliness, Expression

  8 Copy quote

• The living tongue that tells the word, the living ear that hears it, bind and bond us in the communion we long for in the silence of our inner solitude.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Long, Silence, Ears

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2004). “The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination”, p.205, Shambhala Publications

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Go cherish your soul; express companions; set your habits to a life of solitude; then will the faculties rise fair and full within.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Soul, Cherish, Habit

  4 Copy quote

• I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.

  Khalil Gibran

  Believe, Tired, Humility

  31 Copy quote

• Solitude is only a good idea if you have the right people along to share it.

  Jack McDevitt

  Ideas, People, Share

  4 Copy quote

• I had as lief have been myself alone.

  William Shakespeare

  Has Beens

  Samuel Ayscough, William Shakespeare (1827). “An index to the remarkable passages and words made use of by Shakespeare”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I myself am best
  When least in company.

  William Shakespeare

  Company

  William Shakespeare (1767). “The Works of Shakespeare: Twelfth-night; or, What you will. The merry wives of Windsor. The taming of the shrew. The comedy of errors”, p.11

  4 Copy quote

  Show source