#solitude

I would have stayed a hundred times and I would have left one time only - still, I left. ↗

— Mihail Drumeş

#giving-up #leaving #love #separation #solitude

Much better stay in company! To love you must have someone else, Giving requires a legatee, Good neighbours need whole parishfuls Of folk to do it on - in short, Our virtues are all social; if, Deprived of solitude, you chafe, It's clear you're not the virtuous sort. ↗

— Philip Larkin

#society #solitude #virtue #love

He had been for many years, a quiet silent man, associating but little with other men, and used to companionship with his own thoughts. He had never known before the strength of the want in his heart for the frequent recognition of a nod, a look, a word; or the immense amount of relief that had been poured into it by drops through such small means. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#loneliness #sadness #solitude #men

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#walden #men

And so I learned what solitude really was. It was raw material - awesome, malleable,older than men or worlds or water. And it was merciless - for it let a man become precisely what he alone made of himself. ↗

— David James Duncan

#men

At first the solitude charmed me like a prelude, but so much music wounded me. (the ending of Rilke's poem "Music") ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#solitude #music

To Solitude O solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,— Nature's observatory—whence the dell, Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep 'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell. But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee, Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd, Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. ↗

— John Keats

#poetry #solitude #nature

.... it is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#hardship #perseverance #solitude #nature

We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with Him and Him alone. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. Solitude is a place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#nature

D'une complexion farouche et bavarde, ayant le désir de ne voir personne et le besoin de parler à quelqu'un, il se tirait d'affaire en se parlant à lui-même. Quiconque a vécu solitaire sait à quel point le monologue est dans la nature. La parole intérieure démange. Haranguer l'espace est un exutoire. Parler tout haut et tout seul, cela fait l'effet d'un dialogue avec le dieu qu'on a en soit. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#solitude #nature