1,686 Quotes About Solitude

Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.

I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.

People left him alone. And that was all he wanted.

Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

We carry about us the burden of what thousands of people have said and the memories of all our misfortunes. To abandon all that is to be alone, and the mind that is alone is not only innocent but young -- not in time or age, but young, innocent, alive at whatever age -- and only such a mind can see that which is truth and that which is not measurable by words.

In yourself right now is all the place you've got.

The more occupied we are in the things of God, the more likely we priests are to forget what God is all about—and the more complacent we’re likely to become. That’s the story of Jesus. Who do you think got rid of Jesus? The priests—who else? The religious people. That’s the terror of the Gospel, see?