#solitude

Solitude would be ideal if you could pick the people to avoid. ↗

— Karl Kraus

#could #ideal #people #pick #solitude

I don't mind solitude. I love talking to other people, but I do need my space. ↗

— Iris Chang

#i do #i love #love #mind #need

Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity. ↗

— Abraham Cowley

#enough #few #few people #foolishness #knowledge

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone. ↗

— Paul Tillich

#being #being alone #expresses #glory #loneliness

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement. ↗

— Alice Koller

#achievement #alone #aware #because #being

With Jackson there was quiet solitude. Just to sit and look at the landscape. An inner quietness. After dinner, to sit on the back porch and look at the light. No need for talking. For any kind of communication. ↗

— Lee Krasner

#any #back #communication #dinner #inner

Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone. ↗

— Elie Wiesel

#am #choose #despair #i #i am

Not too long ago thousands spent their lives as recluses to find spiritual vision in the solitude of nature. Modern man need not become a hermit to achieve this goal, for it is neither ecstasy nor world-estranged mysticism his era demands, but a balance between quantitative and qualitative reality. Modern man, with his reduced capacity for intuitive perception, is unlikely to benefit from the contemplative life of a hermit in the wilderness. But what he can do is to give undivided attention, at times, to a natural phenomenon, observing it in detail, and recalling all the scientific facts about it he may remember. Gradually, however, he must silence his thoughts and, for moments at least, forget all his personal cares and desires, until nothing remains in his soul but awe for the miracle before him. Such efforts are like journeys beyond the boundaries of narrow self-love and, although the process of intuitive awakening is laborious and slow, its rewards are noticeable from the very first. If pursued through the course of years, something will begin to stir in the human soul, a sense of kinship with the forces of life consciousness which rule the world of plants and animals, and with the powers which determine the laws of matter. While analytical intellect may well be called the most precious fruit of the Modern Age, it must not be allowed to rule supreme in matters of cognition. If science is to bring happiness and real progress to the world, it needs the warmth of man's heart just as much as the cold inquisitiveness of his brain. ↗

— Franz Winkler

#connection #consciousness #ecstasy #intuition #journey

Life is the desert, life the solitude, death joins us to the great majority. ↗

— Edward Young

#desert #great #great majority #joins #life

As soon as we are alone,...inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediatel;y shut ou all our iner doubts, anxieities, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distraction manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#business