408 Quotes by May Sarton

We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.

Where joy in an old pencil is not absurd.

I am not ready to die,But I am learning to trust deathAs I have trusted life.I am movingToward a new freedom

The Fur Person learned then and there that it is better to be a philosopher than to be a king and that, all things considered, wisdom was to be preferred to power.

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.

Where music thundered let the mind be still,Where the will triumphed let there be no will,What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.

I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.

Our two solitudes never quite merged, perhaps, but accepted each other gratefully.