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The
most important education
you get is your own--the one
you learn in solitude.
Erica
Jong |
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solitude
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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 |
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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
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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
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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| 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 |
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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
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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 |
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Solitude is the nurse of
enthusiasm,
and enthusiasm is the parent of genius.
Isaac D'Israeli |
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Solitude is a discipline,
essential for those
who would acquaint themselves with God
and be at peace.
E. Herman |
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Solitude is not to be found in
forests only.
It can be had even in towns
and the thick of worldly population.
Ramana Maharshi |
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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 |
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Settle yourself in solitude, and
you will
come upon God in yourself.
Teresa de Avila |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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