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The
cure for all the illness of life is stored in the inner depth of life
itself,
the access to which becomes possible when we are alone.
This solitude is a world in itself, full of wonders and resources
unthought of. It is absurdly near; yet so unapproachably distant.
-Rabindranath
Tagore
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Wise people are never less alone than when they
are alone. -Jonathan Swift
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| I
remember my grandfather telling me how each of us must live
with a full measure of loneliness that is inescapable, and we must not
destroy ourselves with our passion to escape this aloneness.
-Jim Harrison |
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It is a difficult
lesson to learn today--to leave one's
friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude
for an hour or a day or a week. And yet, once it is done,
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.
-Anne Morrow
Lindbergh
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| Deliberately
seeking solitude--quality time spent away
from family and friends--may seem selfish. It is not.
Solitude is as necessary for our creative spirits to develop
and flourish as are sleep and food for our bodies to survive.
-Sarah
Ban Breathnach |
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| Our language has
wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created
the word
"loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it
has created
the word "solitude" to express the glory of being
alone. -Paul Tillich |
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| What a lovely
surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.
-Ellen Burstyn |
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| We
can cultivate an inner solitude and silence that sets us free
from loneliness and fear.
Loneliness is inner emptiness.
Solitude
is inner fulfillment.
Solitude is not first a place but a state of mind
and heart.
There is a solitude of heart that can be maintained at
all times.
Crowds or the lack of them have little to do with this inward
attentiveness.
It is quite possible to be a desert hermit and never experience
solitude.
But if we possess inward solitude we will not fear being alone, for
we know that we are not alone.
Neither do we fear being with others, for they
do not control us.
In the midst of noise and confusion
we are settled into a deep inner silence.
-Teresa of Avila |
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| Be
able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude.
-Sir
Thomas Browne |
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| We
cannot confront solitude
without moral resources. -Honore de
Balzac |
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| God
gives us an irresistible desire for solitude.
It allows us to come
in touch with him.
We begin with a time and a place for God.
We are
freed from our slavery to the approval and gratitude of others and our
need to see ourselves as important.
After we meet God in the inner depths
of our soul, we see the world with a new light.
We can then enjoy our
regular activities in their proper perspective.
Silence will begin to speak
loudly and we will not be able to ignore the voice of God calling to us.
Activity and busyness often hide God’s voice, and if we do not leave
the hustle and bustle behind, we will have a difficult time hearing
him calling us along our life’s journey.
-Esther Carls Dodgen |
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| When we cannot
bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value
the only companion we
will have from birth to death--ourselves. -Eda LeShan |
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| We visit others
as a matter of social obligation.
How long has it been since we have
visited with ourselves? -Morris Adler |
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| The
person who travels alone can start today; but the person
who
travels with another must wait until the other is ready.
-Henry
David Thoreau |
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Solitude, o solitude
You can't make up your mind
Sometimes you won't leave us alone
Sometimes you're hard to find
At times you wear a different face
And then you change your name
By calling yourself loneliness
You play your cruel game
On summer nights when stars are bright
We don't want you around
But if we want to share the scene
It's often you we've found
Don't think we don't appreciate
The times we need your touch
But when you hang around too long
You always cost too much
tom
walsh |
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Solitude
seems so much fuller than alone time. It has the added
elements of peace and time. Busy mothers can get alone time,
and yet they would open a vein for solitude.
Solitude
gives us time to let our hair down and see what we need, do what
we need, and have the quiet to explore its benefits. When we
have alone time, we can take a quiet bath. When we have
solitude, we can use the quiet bath to explore what we I need to
do with our solitude.
Busy
people may be able to squeeze in alone time now and again. And
people who are living in balance require solitude. Solitude
is that quiet mist of peacefulness that enters our ears and makes
its own music, enters our eyes and creates its own art, and enters
our pores and imagines its own muse.
Solitude
returns us to ourselves while expanding us beyond our
boundaries. Solitude is precious and essential.
-Anne
Wilson Schaef |
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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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| 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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| It
is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it
is easy
in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is
the one
who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness
the independence of
solitude. -Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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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
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 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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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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| 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
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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| If only you were
willing to continue on your journey towards your Self.
Eventually you would reach close enough to the center of
your Being so that the
feeling of loneliness disappears and is replaced by a sense
of aloneness, which
is incredibly full and enriching. When you are on the
way to alone but you are
not yet there, you will feel lonely. If you keep
going,
you will reach to alone and then loneliness disappears.
-Leonard
Jacobson |
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| To
make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch
with your soul.
To do this, you need to experience solitude, because
in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.
-Deepak Chopra |
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| When you
have closed your doors, and darkened your room, remember
never
to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; God is
within, and your
genius is within--and what need have they of light to see
what you are doing? -Epictetus |
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