solitude

The most important education
you get is your own--the one
you learn in solitude.

Erica Jong

The goal of a healthy solitude is love:  love and acceptance
of ourselves as we are and where we are,
and love and compassion for others.

Dorothy Payne
  

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy
in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is the one
who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness
the independence of solitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

  

The insight we gain from solitude has very little to do with
the amount of time we spend alone.  It has a lot more to do
with the quality of time we spend with ourselves.

Jan Johnson Drantell
  

  

There were many times in my life, until I was left alone, that I wished for solitude.  I now find that I love solitude.  I never had the blessed gift of being alone until the last of my loved ones was wrested from me.  Now I can go sometimes for days and days without seeing anyone.  I'm not entirely alone, because I listen to the radio and read the newspapers.  I love to read.  That is my greatest new luxury, having the time to read.  And oh, the little things I find to do to make the days, as I say, much too short.

Solitude--walking alone, doing things alone--is the most blessed thing in the world.  The mind relaxes and thoughts begin to flow and I think I am beginning to find myself a little bit.

Helen Hayes
   

I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious.
Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before.
It is as if in parting one did actually lose an arm.  And then,
like the starfish, one grows it anew; one is whole again, complete and
round--more whole, even, than before, when other people had pieces of one.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  

The choice of solitude
is not so much a rejection
of community as a
recognition that certain
experiences and truths
are so alien to
ordinary consciousness
that the individual
must withdraw in order
to experience them.

Carol P. Christ

  
For solitude is an attitude, an attitude of gratitude.  It is
a state of mind, a state of heart, a whole universe unto itself.
The early contemplatives in all traditions knew this secret of happiness.

Francine Schiff
  
The awareness we experience in solitude is priceless for the peace it can give.  It is also the key to true loving in our relationships.  When we have a part of ourselves that is firm, confident, and alone, we don’t need another person to fill us.  We know that we have private spaces full of goodness and self-worth, and we grant the same to those we love.  We do not try to pry into every corner of their lives or to fill the emptiness inside us with their presence.

As always, look at the world around you.  The mountain is not restless in its aloneness.  The hawk tracing circles in the sky is not longing for union with the sun.  They exist in the perfect peace of an eternal present, and that is the peace that one finds only in solitude.  Find this peace in yourself, and you will never know another moment of loneliness in your life.

Kent Nerburn
  
  
All 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 Suyin
  

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time.
To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome
and dissipating.  I never found the companion that was
so companionable as solitude.  I am for the most part more lonely
when I go abroad among people than when I stay in my chambers.

Henry David Thoreau
  

Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm,
and enthusiasm is the parent of genius.

Isaac D'Israeli

Solitude is a discipline, essential for those
who would acquaint themselves with God
and be at peace.

E. Herman

Solitude is not to be found in forests only.
It can be had even in towns
and the thick of worldly population.

Ramana Maharshi

It would do the world good if every person in it would compel themselves occasionally to be absolutely alone.  Most of the world's progress has come out of such loneliness.

Bruce Barton

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

Teresa de Avila
  
  
Solitude is not out to deceive anyone; it does not pretend or embellish;
it has nothing to hide and invents nothing.  It is completely naked and
without adornment; it knows nothing of shows or the applause which
poisons the mind.  It has God as sole witness of its life and actions.

Petrarch
  

Not everyone knows how to be alone with others, how to share solitude.
We have to help each other to understand how to be in our solitude,
so that we can relate to each other without grabbing on to each other.
We can be interdependent but not dependent.  Loneliness is
rejected dependency.  Solitude is shared interdependency.

David Spangler
   
  

Solitude can become your most meaningful companion and it can assist
you in being a more giving person in your spiritual partnerships.  Rather
than regarding your partner's need for time alone as a threat, see it as
a time of renewal that you celebrate.  Make every effort to help each
other have that space.  Treat that space as sacred.

Wayne Dyer
   

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We need periods of being by ourselves--alone.  Sometimes a
fortnight or even a week will do wonders for one, unless
he or she has drawn too heavily on the account.  The simple
custom, moreover, of taking an hour, or even a half hour,
alone in the quiet, in the midst of the daily routine of life,
would be the source of inestimable gain for countless numbers.

Ralph Waldo Trine
   
I can be alone,
I know how to be alone.

There is a tacit understanding
between my pencils
and the trees outside;
between the rain
and my luminous hair.

The tea is boiling:
my golden zone,
my pure burning amber.

I can be alone,
I know how to be alone.
By tea-light
I write.

Nina Cassian

   

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between
two people, that each protects the solitude of the other.

Rainer Maria Rilke
   
Grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my way every day
to go outdoors among the trees and grasses,
among all growing things, and there may I be alone,
to talk with the one that I belong to.

Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav
   

Being solitary is being alone well; being alone luxuriously immersed
in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your
own presence rather than the absence of others.

Alice Koller
  
   
It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which
I can truly love my brothers and sisters. The more solitary
I am the more affection I have for them. . . . Solitude
and silence teach me to love my brothers and sisters
for what they are, not for what they say.

Thomas Merton
    

If only you were willing to continue on your journey towards your Self.
Eventually you would reach close enough to the center of your Being so that the
feeling of loneliness disappears and is replaced by a sense of aloneness, which
is incredibly full and enriching.  When you are on the way to alone but you are
not yet there, you will feel lonely.  If you keep going,
you will reach to alone and then loneliness disappears.

Leonard Jacobson
   

   

To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul.
To do this, you need to experience solitude, because
in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.

Deepak Chopra
   
   
When you have closed your doors, and darkened your room, remember never
to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; God is within, and your
genius is within--and what need have they of light to see what you are doing?

Epictetus
   

All who seek the roots of life dig in solitude for them.

C.H.A. Bjerregaard
    

All our misfortunes spring from our hatred of being alone.

Jean de la Bruyère
   

   

We choose solitude.  We think loneliness chooses us.  People fight loneliness because
they think it is a statement about their self-worth, instead of a choice they have made.
You might be lonely because you've defined only a few unavailable or select individuals
as worthy companions:  your ex-lover or ex-spouse, your adult children, someone who
is dead, or someone of your "class" and accomplishments.
You are lonely because you are a discriminating person.  There are lots of people
available to be with if you are willing to seek them out.  Loneliness doesn't choose you,
you choose loneliness in preference to the alternatives.  There is nothing wrong with your
preference--just recognize it and adapt to the circumstances that result.
Solitude is quite different.  It is wonderful because you want to be with the person
you're with:  yourself.  You cherish solitude.
The difference between loneliness and solitude is your perception of who you are
alone with and who made the choice.

Jennifer James
   

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