Quotes about Solitude

Solitude is the practice of being absent from people and things to attend to God.

most of our human problems come because we don't know how to sit still in our room for an hour. — Leighton Ford

Let the person who cannot be alone beware of community. Let the person who is not in community beware of being alone."17

As the wise, old Abbot Moses said when a brother came to him for a good word, "Go, sit in your cell [a monk's room], and your cell will teach you everything.

First and foremost, the monk should own nothing in this world, but he should have as his possessions solitude of the body, modesty of bearing, a modulated tone of voice, and a well-ordered manner of speech. He should be without anxiety as to his food and drink, and should eat in silence.

I do say all I've ever written about is being alone. And most people take that as, 'Oh, that's so sad.' And I always say, 'No. No, all I ever write about is being alone, and sometimes that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.'

I actually like being alone. I spend most evenings reading and taking long baths.

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, in the enjoyment of one's self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

Willed introversion, in fact, is one of the classic implements of creative genius and can be employed as a deliberate device.

What I like doing best is Nothing." "How do you do Nothing," asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time. "Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, 'What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?' and you say, 'Oh, Nothing,' and then you go and do it. It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." "Oh!" said Pooh.

She also considered very seriously what she would look like in a little cottage in the middle of the forest, dressed in a melancholy gray and holding communion only with the birds and trees; a life of retirement away from the vain world; a life into which no man came. It had its attractions, but she decided that gray did not suit her.

And I'd say to myself as I looked so lazily down at the sea: "There's nobody else in the world, and the world was made for me.