Solitude Quotes - Page 40

• As a model, I didn't have an identity; I was a chameleon, a silent actress. I was an amorphous thing. I wasn't full of personality, I was full of solitude and solemnity. I wasn't a cover-girl type.

  Carmen Dell'Orefice

  Girl, Personality, Identity

  "Carmen Dell’Orefice, 82-Year-Old Model, Lands YOU Magazine Cover", www.huffingtonpost.com. July 8, 2013.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• The hunter who accepts the sporting code of ethics keeps his commandments in the greatest solitude, with no witness or audience other than the sharp peaks of the mountain, the roaming cloud, the stern oak, the trembling juniper, and the passing animal.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Hunting, Animal, Clouds

  Jose Ortega y Gasset (2007). “Meditations on Hunting”, p.42, Wilderness Adventures Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Artist, Order, Essence

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1975). “GIFT FROM THE SEA”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think solitude is a really positive thing. I cherish solitude immensely. In today’s society, there’s so much pressure to communicate, eat out, be friends with people. Why can’t you read a book on your own? Why have you got to have a book club?

  Nicky Wire

  Book, Thinking, People

  9 Copy quote

• When I was going into one of my first meditation retreats, I asked my father, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, for some advice. He said, "How you act when you're alone affects the rest of your life." Even in solitude, the ruler engages in virtue.

  Sakyong Mipham

  Father, Meditation, Advice

  Sakyong Mipham (2005). “Ruling Your World: Ancient Strategies For Modern Life”, p.16, Harmony

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wilderness has been characterized as barren and unproductive; little can be grown in its sand and rock. But the crops of wilderness have always been its spiritual values - silence and solitude, a sense of awe and gratitude - able to be harvested by any traveler who visits.

  David Douglas

  Spiritual, Gratitude, Journey

  David Douglas (1989). “Wilderness Sojourn: Notes in the Desert Silence”, HarperCollins

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.We won't have the courage to go into that terrifying place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.

  Richard Rohr

  Love, Spiritual, Loneliness

  230 Copy quote

• In a world of intrusive technology, we must engage in a kind of struggle if we wish to sustain moments of solitude. E-reading opens the door to distraction. It invites connectivity and clicking and purchasing. The closed network of a printed book, on the other hand, seems to offer greater serenity. It harks back to a pre-jacked-in age. Cloth, paper, ink: For these read helmet, cuirass, shield. They afford a degree of protection and make possible a less intermediated, less fractured experience. They guard our aloneness. That is why I love them, and why I read printed books still.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Love, Book, Reading

  Mohsin Hamid (2014). “Discontent and Its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York and London”, p.81, Penguin UK

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Unlike the millions who casually masturbate in solitude while looking at girlie pictures in Playboy and similar magazines, the massage man preferred an accomplice, an attendant lady of respectable appearance who would help him reduce the guilt and loneliness of this most lonely act of love.

  Gay Talese

  Love, Lonely, Loneliness

  Gay Talese (1981). “Thy neighbor's wife”, Dell Publishing Company

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a vast difference between an Apostolic life and the solitude of the Carthusians. The latter is truly very holy but is not suited to those whom God has called to the former, which is in itself more excellent.

  Vincent de Paul

  Faith, Differences, Excellent

  Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1992). “Correspondence, conferences, documents”, New City Pr

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The secret prayer chamber is a bloody battleground. Here violent and decisive battles are fought out. Here the fate of souls for time and eternity is determined, in quietude and solitude.

  Ole Hallesby

  Prayer, Fate, Soul

  Ole Hallesby (1975). “Prayer”, Augsburg Fortress Publishing

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Remember, too, every day, and whenever you can, repeat to yourself, Lord, have mercy on all who appear before Thee today. For every hour and every moment thousands of men leave life on this earth, and their souls appear before God. And how many of them depart in solitude, unknown, sad, dejected that no one mourns for them or even knows whether they have lived or not!

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Men, Soul, Today

  Fyodor Dostoevsky (2015). “The Brothers Karamazov”, p.484, First Avenue Editions

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wonderful nature has a double meaning, which dazzles great minds and blinds uncultivated souls. When man is ignorant, when the desert is filled with visions, the darkness of solitude is added to the darkness of intelligence; hence, in man, the possibilities of perdition

  Victor Hugo

  Men, Soul, Darkness

  Victor Hugo (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Victor Hugo (Illustrated)”, p.7026, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Feeling weightless... it's so many things together. A feeling of pride, of healthy solitude, of dignified freedom from everything that's dirty, sticky. You feel exquisitely comfortable... and you feel you have so much energy, such an urge to do things, such an ability to do things. And you work well, yes, you think well, without sweat, without difficulty as if the biblical curse in the sweat of thy face and in sorrow no longer exists, As if you've been born again.

  Wally Schirra

  Dirty, Biblical, Pride

  9 Copy quote

• The hostility of this landscape teaches me how to be quiet and unobtrusive, how to find grace among spiders with a poisonous bite. I sat on a lone boulder in the midst of the curlews. By now, they had grown accustomed to me. This too, I found encouraging-that in the face of stressful intrusions, we can eventually settle in. One begins to almost trust the intruder as a presence that demands greater intent toward life. On a day like today when the air is dry and smells of salt, I have found my open space, my solitude, and sky. And I have found the birds who require it.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Smell, Space, Air

  7 Copy quote

• I write in order to find out what I truly know and how I really feel about certain things. Writing requires me to go much deeper into my thoughts and memories than conversation does. Writing provides the solitude necessary to reflect on being in this world.

  Leslie Marmon Silko

  Memories, Writing, Order

  16 Copy quote

• He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world.

  Jean Cocteau

  Children, Mad, Lazy

  The New York Times, October 11, 1985.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Imperishable moments and immortal deeds, death itself and love stronger than death, will be as though they had never been. The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed and the earth tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for the moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit and all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the universe, will be at rest.

  Arthur Balfour

  Men, Race, Space

  24 Copy quote

• The writing of poetry is a chancy business, it's currency solitude and loss, its tools coffee and too much wine, its hours midnight, dawn, and dusk, and unlike other trade the hours asleep are not time off.

  Keith Miller

  Coffee, Writing, Wine

  8 Copy quote

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

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Inspirational, Character, Way

  131 Copy quote

• Then what am I - the body substance which I can see with my eyes and feel with my hands? Or am I this realization, this greater understanding which dwells within it, yet expands through the universe outside; a part of all existence, powerless but without need for power; immersed in solitude, yet in contact with all creation? There are moments when the two appear inseparable, and others when they could be cut apart by the merest flash of light.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Eye, Cutting, Light

  "The Spirit of St. Louis".

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.

  Tanya Davis

  Blessed, Causes, Okay

  4 Copy quote

• The soul that has been enriched by communion with God will not be dismayed by isolation but will welcome solitude. He will seek not the crowd but the closet, and emerging will never walk alone, for he has unseen companionship.

  Frances J Roberts

  Soul, Crowds, Unseen

  36 Copy quote

• There is a difference between solitude and isolation. One is connected and one isn't. Solitude replenishes, isolation diminishes.

  Henry Cloud

  Differences, Isolation, Connected

  Twitter post from Feb 19, 2015

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places, and men of genius, in their walks, at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the the mind upwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Wise, Art, Eye

  15 Copy quote