Quotes about Solitude

In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless stander-of-mast-heads;

It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow.

I keep a hotel room in my town, although I have a large house. And I go there at about 5:30 in the morning, and I start working. And I don't allow anybody to come in that room. I work on yellow pads and with ballpoint pens. I keep a Bible, a thesaurus, a dictionary, and a bottle of sherry. I stay there until midday.

The worldly comforts are not for me. I am like a traveler, who takes a rest under a tree in the shade and then goes on his way

A home filled with nothing but yourself. It's heavy, that lightness. It's crushing, that emptiness.

Life is hard, we say. An oyster's life is worse. She lives motionless, soundless, her own cold ugly shape her only dissipation.

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dumbledore asks Snape not to wake Harry: "Let him sleep. For in dreams, we enter a world that is entirely our own. Let him swim in the deepest ocean or glide over the highest cloud.

Like dropping through a hole in everything that the world said was important….Like discovering that nothing else mattered and all I needed was now….Temporarily removed from the game….Like floating weightless on the Dead Sea and looking up at an empty sky.

In winter when the snow and ice were fierce, we shook beneath our different roofs alone, and that's what Hell is like, I think. It's cold and shame and shaking. And worst of all, it's loneliness.

Solitude can be very rewarding and full of blessing because in the silence of the inner being, one finds God.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul

Come away with me, he said, we will live on a desert island. I said, I am a desert island. It was not what he had in mind.