Home
π Solitude
βHappiness is not in objects nor in events nor in experiences it is in usβ
β Francis Lucille
βOne can never have enough socks a good pair of thick winter socks can bring one closer to that simple peace of solitudeβ
β Virginia Woolf
βSometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for youβ
β David Whyte
βThe flower does not dream of the bee it blossoms and the bee comesβ
β Mark Nepo
βWithout great solitude no serious work is possible.β
β Pablo Picasso
βA man can be himself only so long as he is alone and if he does not love solitude he will not love freedomβ
β Seneca
βIt is easy in the world to live after the worlds opinion it is easy in solitude to live after our own but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitudeβ
β Ralph Waldo Emerson
βI am quite comfortable alone with my thoughts and my purposeβ
β Abraham Lincoln
βIt is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew and in that there is joyβ
β Jiddu Krishnamurti
βIn our lives we will inevitably face painful experiences but the suffering that accompanies them is optionalβ
β Tara Brach
βI sometimes think I enjoy suffering but the truth is I would like the sky to be clear yet I also love clouds and rainβ
β Fernando Pessoa
βThe capacity to be alone is a valuable resource when changes of mental attitude are requiredβ
β Anthony Storr
βGo out into the solitude and close the door behind thee. Let the manifold world that makes thee dizzy vanish from thy sight.β
β Mechthild of Magdeburg
βBe patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselvesβ
β Rainer Maria Rilke
βThe monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mindβ
β Albert Einstein
βSolitude is the companion of greatness and the nurse of geniusβ
β Petrarch
βThe strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.β
β Henrik Ibsen
βI hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people that each should stand guard over the solitude of the otherβ
βSilence is a source of great strengthβ
β Lao Tzu
βThere is a pleasure in the pathless woods, there is a rapture on the lonely shore.β
β Lord Byron
βSolitude is a way of waiting for the inexpressible and the unknowable to make itself feltβ
β Sadhguru
βIf you are lonely when you are alone you are in bad companyβ
β Jean-Paul Sartre
βYour unborn mind is not something you learned how to have you were born with itβ
β Bankei
βA happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can liveβ
β Bertrand Russell
βA talent is formed in stillness a character in the world stream of lifeβ
β Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
βKnowing others is intelligence but knowing yourself is true wisdomβ
βOne of the lovely things about solitude is that it can happen in the middle of a crowdβ
β John O Donohue
βThere are some things you learn best in calm and some in stormβ
β Willa Cather
βThere is nothing like staying at home for real comfortβ
β Jane Austen
βThe thief left it behind the moon at my windowβ
β Ryokan
βThe separate self is an intermittent experience awareness is the ever-present backgroundβ
β Rupert Spira
βI have studied the science of departuresβ
β Osip Mandelstam
βWe look at the world once in childhood the rest is memoryβ
β Louise Gluck
βAll of humanitys problems stem from mans inability to sit quietly in a room aloneβ
β Blaise Pascal
βSolitude is the cure for the sickness caused by companyβ
βI love you without knowing how or when or from where I love you simply without problems or prideβ
β Pablo Neruda
βThe soul is healed by being with children and by being in solitude with ones own thoughtsβ
β Fyodor Dostoevsky
βBe melting snow wash yourself of yourselfβ
β Rumi
βTo walk in beauty means to walk with gratitude and appreciation for the natural worldβ
β Angeles Arrien
βThe thoughtful soul to solitude retires.β
β Omar Khayyam
βWithin you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any timeβ
β Hermann Hesse
βNothing is harder to do than nothingβ
β Jenny Odell
βLanguage has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.β
β Paul Tillich
βI exist as I am and that is enough in the grand solitude of beingβ
β Walt Whitman
βSolitude is the audience-chamber of God.β
β Walter Savage Landor
βOur lives are filled with noise and activity but the deepest truth is born in silenceβ
β Wayne Muller
βIn the darkness two shadows reaching through the hopeless heavy dusk their hands met and light spilled in a flood like a survey of the sunβ
β Madeline Miller
βWandering is the activity of the child the passion of the genius it is the discovery of the self it is the artist walkingβ
β Rebecca Solnit
βThe individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribeβ
β Friedrich Nietzsche
βOnce you begin to recognize the divine image in yourself you begin to see it everywhereβ
β Mooji
βJust to be is a blessing just to live is holyβ
β Abraham Joshua Heschel
βTry to praise the mutilated worldβ
β Adam Zagajewski
βI celebrate myself and sing myselfβ
βSolitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.β
β Octavio Paz
βKnowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving when we can be alone we can be with others without using them as a means of escapeβ
β bell hooks
βThe darkness around us is deepβ
β Robert Bly
βSilence is the language of God all else is poor translationβ
βI want to do with you what spring does with the cherry treesβ
βI have become my own version of an optimist if I cant make it through one door I will go through another or I will make a doorβ
β Rabindranath Tagore
βWhere should the swordsman fix his mind nowhere let the body and limbs work themselves out according to a discipline they have undergoneβ
β Takuan Soho
βSolitude is the place of purificationβ
β Martin Buber
βTo go in the dark with a light is to know the light to know the dark go dark go without sight and find that the dark too blooms and singsβ
β Wendell Berry
βLoneliness is the poverty of self solitude is the richness of selfβ
β May Sarton
βThe soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.β
βI want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees but first I must learn what spring does aloneβ
βSolitude is not a private therapeutic place but the place of conversionβ
β Henri Nouwen
βSitting quietly doing nothing spring comes and the grass grows by itselfβ
β Matsuo Basho
βWe write to taste life twice in the moment and in retrospectβ
β Anais Nin
βIf you have the words there is always a chance that you will find the wayβ
β Seamus Heaney
βGo back and pick up what you have left behind your creative life your ideas your dreams your hopes your original natureβ
β Clarissa Pinkola Estes
βThe purpose of all our effort is to achieve purity of heartβ
β Cassian
βIn the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures for in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshedβ
β Khalil Gibran
βWhen hungry eat when tired sleep fools may laugh at me but wise men will know what I meanβ
β Linji
βHe who sits alone, sleeps alone, and walks alone, who is strenuous and subdues himself alone, will find delight in the solitude of the forest.β
β Gautama Buddha
βYou are the sky everything else is just the weatherβ
β Pema Chodron
βAre you looking for me I am in the next seat my shoulder is against yoursβ
β Kabir
βI never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.β
β Henry David Thoreau
βNowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soulβ
β Marcus Aurelius
βWe do not grow absolutely chronologically we grow sometimes in one dimension and not in anotherβ
β AnaΓ―s Nin
βSettle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourselfβ
β Teresa of Avila
βIf you want a place to rest Cold Mountain is good white clouds settle on the rocky peaksβ
β Han Shan
βIn the quiet hours of reflection we find the truest version of ourselvesβ
β Albert Schweitzer
βAll life is yogaβ
β Sri Aurobindo
βThe great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space free from the outside pressures.β
β Marya Mannes
βSolitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man.β
β Thomas De Quincey
βThe supreme calling of every human being is to aspire to self-realizationβ
β Anandamayi Ma
βThe quieter you become the more you can hear the whispers of your own soulβ
β Ram Dass
βSeclusion is the price of greatness.β
β Paramahansa Yogananda
βAll shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be wellβ
β Julian of Norwich
βIt is not that we have a short time to live but that we waste much of it in noiseβ
βKnowing others is intelligence knowing yourself is true wisdom mastering others is strength mastering yourself is true powerβ
βMy imagination functions much better when I don't have to speak to people.β
β Patricia Highsmith
βTo be alone with your own thoughts is a luxury that most cannot affordβ
β Michael Harris
βSolitude was my only consolation deep dark deathlike solitudeβ
β Mary Shelley
βHappiness is a skill that can be trained and solitude is one of its training groundsβ
β Matthieu Ricard
βThe only journey is the one withinβ
βNothing in all creation is so like God as stillnessβ
β Meister Eckhart
βOnce you fall into a reflective life you discover how little you needβ
βThe time will come when with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door in your own mirrorβ
β Derek Walcott
βIn order to understand the world one has to turn away from it on occasionβ
β Albert Camus
βDo not be afraid of silence do not be afraid of aloneness just sit and the jewels of peace and happiness will come to youβ
β Ajahn Brahm
βLet the one who cannot be alone beware of communityβ
β Dietrich Bonhoeffer
βWhen you do something you should burn yourself completely like a good bonfire leaving no trace of yourselfβ
β Shunryu Suzuki
βThere are two ways of spreading light to be the candle or the mirror that reflects itβ
β Edith Wharton
βThe real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyesβ
β Marcel Proust
βThe root of joy is gratefulness it is not joy that makes us grateful it is gratitude that makes us joyfulβ
β David Steindl-Rast
βThe more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.β
β Aldous Huxley
βOne is not born free but becomes free through solitary reflectionβ
β Simone de Beauvoir
βThe place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard but doubts and loves dig up the world like a mole a plowβ
β Yehuda Amichai
βYou wanna fly you got to give up the stuff that weighs you downβ
β Toni Morrison
βSolitude requires you to move past reacting to information created by other people and focus instead on your own thoughts and experiencesβ
β Cal Newport
βDont ask yourself what the world needs ask what makes you come alive and then go and do that because what the world needs is people who have come aliveβ
β Howard Thurman
βEvery day priests minutely examine the law and endlessly chant complicated sutras before doing that though they should learn how to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain the snow and moonβ
β Ikkyu
βInside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all the others were making shipsβ
β Charles Simic
βWhosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.β
β Aristotle
βI live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.β
β Unknown
βWhen you know who you are everything else falls into placeβ
β Jean Klein
βIn a field I am the absence of field this is always the case wherever I am I am what is missingβ
β Mark Strand
βSolitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others rather it means never living apart from ones selfβ
β Parker Palmer
βNo one is free who is not master of himself and mastery begins in solitudeβ
β Epictetus
βSilence is a place of great power and healingβ
β Sara Maitland
βNothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know in our solitudeβ
βLanguage has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone and solitude to express the gloryβ
βThings wont just lean together and create what we need to liveβ
β Kay Ryan
βSilence is essential for deep transformation to take placeβ
β Thich Nhat Hanh
βWe do not come into this world we come out of it as leaves from a tree as the ocean waves the universe peoplesβ
β Alan Watts
βDetached observer just watching the moon I belong to the autumn nightβ
β Saigyo
βIn the dark night of the soul bright flows the river of Godβ
β John of the Cross
βAppear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend march swiftly to places where you are not expectedβ
β Sun Tzu
βI have learned how faces fall how terror peers from lowered eyesβ
β Anna Akhmatova
βThe bud stands for all things even for those things that dont flowerβ
β Galway Kinnell
βAloneness is not loneliness loneliness is a negative state aloneness is positive aloneness is fullβ
β Osho
βSolitude is where I place my chaos to rest and awaken my inner peaceβ
β Vicki Robin
βThe art of losing isnt hard to masterβ
β Elizabeth Bishop
βAnd stand together yet not too near together for the pillars of the temple stand apart and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each others shadowβ
β Kahlil Gibran
βWhen we have nothing to cling to as our own we can even welcome the unknownβ
βIn the end just three things matter how well we have lived how well we have loved how well we have learned to let goβ
β Jack Kornfield
βThe quieter you become the more you can hear the universe speakingβ
βI am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my shipβ
β Louisa May Alcott
βIt 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 man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.β
βWhereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silentβ
β Ludwig Wittgenstein
βIn the middle of the forest there is an unexpected clearing which can only be found by those who have gotten lostβ
β Tomas Transtromer
βPeople neglect the root and seek the branchesβ
β Huang Po
βYour vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart who looks outside dreams who looks inside awakesβ
β Carl Jung
βI am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.β
β Emily BrontΓ«
βBefore you know what kindness really is you must lose thingsβ
β Naomi Shihab Nye
βIn solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.β
β Laurence Sterne
βBe content with what you have rejoice in the way things are when you realize there is nothing lacking the whole world belongs to youβ
βBeware the barrenness of a busy life for true richness comes from withinβ
β Socrates
βDo not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise but seek what they sought in solitary contemplationβ
βI am no bird and no net ensnares me I am a free human being with an independent willβ
β Charlotte Bronte
βA man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom.β
β Arthur Schopenhauer
βTalk to yourself like you would to someone you loveβ
β Brene Brown
βI never found a companion that was so companionable as solitudeβ
βYour task is not to seek for love but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against itβ
βThe winds of grace blow all the time all we need to do is set our sailsβ
β Ramakrishna
βI desire the things that will destroy me in the endβ
β Sylvia Plath
βThe mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind.β
β Nikola Tesla
βSolitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous β to poetry.β
β Thomas Mann
βSilence is about getting inside what you are doing being in the world not just observing it from outsideβ
β Erling Kagge
βThe person who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The person who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever seen.β
β Francis Philip Frangipane
βSettle into solitude as if it were an old friend.β
βBe regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your workβ
β Gustave Flaubert
βIn an age of speed I began to think nothing could be more invigorating than going slow in an age of distraction nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attentionβ
β Pico Iyer
βSilence is a place of freedomβ
β Anne D. LeClaire
βAn honorable human relationship is one in which two people have the right to use the word loveβ
β Adrienne Rich
βOn the last day of the world I would want to plant a treeβ
β W.S. Merwin
βAloneness is a flower a lotus blooming in your heartβ
βThe little things they are not littleβ
β Jon Kabat-Zinn
βConversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.β
β Edward Gibbon
βEver since happiness heard your name it has been running through the streets trying to find youβ
β Hafiz
βTo study the Buddha Way is to study the self to study the self is to forget the selfβ
β Dogen
βWhat a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.β
β Ellen Burstyn
βSolitude is the profoundest fact of the human conditionβ
βFrom blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches we bought from the boy at the bend in the roadβ
β Li-Young Lee
βSolitude shows us the way back to our essential beauty which waits for us under our covering of opinions and attitudesβ
β Roger Housden
βFor oft when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitudeβ
β William Wordsworth
βHappiness is the absence of the striving for happiness found in solitary acceptanceβ
β Zhuangzi
βWithin you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourselfβ
βAlmost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes including youβ
β Anne Lamott
βSettle into solitude as if it were the one thing in the world you know how to do.β
βI am awfully greedy I want everything from life I want to be a woman and to be a man to have many friends and to have lonelinessβ
βWhen you lose touch with inner stillness you lose touch with yourselfβ
β Eckhart Tolle
βWhen one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others tooβ
β Anne Morrow Lindbergh
βLanguage has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone and the word solitude to express the glory of being aloneβ
βWilderness is the place where we learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable aloneβ
βTo write poetry one must bring full attention to the taskβ
β Jane Hirshfield
βHow wild it was to let it beβ
β Cheryl Strayed
βWithin each of us there is a silence a silence as vast as a universe we are afraid of it and we long for itβ
β Gunilla Norris
βThe best portion of a good life is the little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love done in quietβ
βI go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out and I say oh I am miserable what shall I do and the sea says in its lovely voice excuse me I have work to doβ
β Mary Oliver
βIn the stillness of the night I have walked with you and we have spoken in the silence of our heartsβ
βI have dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after in the silence of my soulβ
β Emily Bronte
βSolitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.β
β James Russell Lowell
βThe function of prayer is not to influence God but rather to change the nature of the one who praysβ
β Soren Kierkegaard
βRetire into yourself for the rational principle that rules has this nature: to be content with itselfβ
βWe must close our eyes and invoke a new manner of seeing a wakefulness that is the birthright of us allβ
β Plotinus
βWhen you lose touch with inner stillness you lose touch with yourself when you lose touch with yourself you lose yourself in the worldβ
βPerhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from usβ
βIf you let go a little you will have a little peace if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peaceβ
β Ajahn Chah
βThe most common form of despair is not being who you areβ
βThe only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliatedβ
β Ted Hughes
βI dwell in possibilityβ
β Emily Dickinson
βSolitude is the place of purification.β
β Martin Luther
βStop seeking and you will find what you are looking forβ
β Papaji
βThe quieter you become the more you can hearβ
βThe most fundamental aggression to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage to look at ourselves honestlyβ
βThe time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayerβ
β Brother Lawrence
βBe alone and watch what happens when you are alone and totally accepting of your alonenessβ
βThe strongest of all warriors are these two: time and patienceβ
β Leo Tolstoy
βHappiness is the absence of the striving for happinessβ
β Chuang Tzu
βOne day I will find the right words and they will be simpleβ
β Jack Kerouac
βMeditation is the ultimate mobile device you can use it anywhere anytime unobtrusivelyβ
β Sharon Salzberg
βInhabited space transcends geometrical spaceβ
β Gaston Bachelard
βWe do not think ourselves into new ways of living we live ourselves into new ways of thinkingβ
β Richard Rohr
βSomeone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness and it took me years to understand that this too was a giftβ
βWisdom tells me I am nothing love tells me I am everything between the two my life flowsβ
β Nisargadatta Maharaj
βThe great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps the independence of solitudeβ
βWe have two lives and the second begins when we realize we only have one best discovered aloneβ
β Confucius
βSettle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourself.β
β Teresa of Γvila
βWalking along dripping wet no umbrellaβ
β Santoka Taneda
βAlertness is the hidden discipline of familiarityβ
βWhat I am pointing to is the possibility of complete and total peace right here right now regardless of any circumstances internal or externalβ
β Gangaji
βI prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poemsβ
β Wislawa Szymborska
βTrue silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.β
β William Penn
βI have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian a Hindu a Muslim a Buddhist a Jewβ
βAll that you touch you change all that you change changes you the only lasting truth is changeβ
β Octavia Butler
βA 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.β
βIn solitude we find that our life is not diminished but expandedβ
β Thomas Merton
βIn every walk with nature one receives far more than one seeks in solitary communionβ
β John Muir
βSolitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition man is the only being who knows he is aloneβ
βWe delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through in its cocoonβ
β Maya Angelou
βI took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart: I am I am I amβ
βThe world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles but only by a spiritual journeyβ
βMuddy water is best cleared by leaving it aloneβ
βIn the depth of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summerβ
βYou do not need to leave your room to discover the worldβ
β Franz Kafka
βA man can be himself only so long as he is aloneβ
β Schopenhauer
βThe peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of griefβ
βDare to declare who you are it is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speechβ
β Hildegard of Bingen
βA wandering mind is a sign that something is wrong with our prayerβ
β Evagrius Ponticus
βThe greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneselfβ
β Montaigne
βBe still and heal let the forest take away your worriesβ
βA woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fictionβ
βThe best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.β
β Thomas Edison
βYou must understand the whole of life not just one little part of it that is why you must read that is why you must look at the skies that is why you must sing and danceβ
β J. Krishnamurti
βIf you wish to be a writer writeβ
βIt may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journeyβ
βIn a day when you dont come across any problems you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong pathβ
β Vivekananda
βYou do not have to be good you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repentingβ
βThe small man builds cages for everyone he knows while the sage who has to duck his head when the moon is low keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful rowdy prisonersβ
βSettle into solitude like a tree in the midst of a vast plain β rooted, silent, and alive.β
βGo sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everythingβ
β Desert Fathers
βSolitude is that human situation in which I keep myself companyβ
β Hannah Arendt
βAttention is the beginning of devotionβ
βBe alone that is the secret of invention be alone that is when ideas are bornβ
βWhenever you are creating beauty around you you are restoring your own soulβ
β Alice Walker
βLet him who cannot be alone beware of community let him who is not in community beware of being aloneβ
βI ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slideβ
β Billy Collins
βIn our natural state we are glorious beings in the world of illusion we are lost and imprisoned slaves to our appetites and our will to false powerβ
β Marianne Williamson
βWhat do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each otherβ
β George Eliot
βSilence is essential we need silence just as much as we need air just as much as plants need lightβ
βI had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.β
βSolitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others but rather a practice of mindful presenceβ
βA room without books is like a body without a soul and solitude without reflection is mere emptinessβ
β Cicero
βThat is what learning is you suddenly understand something that you have understood all your life but in a new wayβ
β Doris Lessing
βIn solitude we remain face to face with the naked being of thingsβ
βYou need not leave your room remain sitting at your table and listen do not even listen simply wait be quiet still and solitary the world will freely offer itself to youβ
βEverything is a passing show learn to enjoy the showβ
β Robert Adams
βThe person who has not learned to be happy and content while completely alone for an hour a day, or a week, has missed life's greatest serenity.β
β Lin Yutang
βLet me not look for allies in lifes battlefield but to my own strength aloneβ
βWhen the mind is free from all conditions it is called basic mindβ
β Joshu
βIn silence and stillness a devout soul makes progress and learns the hidden things of the scripturesβ
β Thomas a Kempis
βYour hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nightsβ
βWhen you cease to fear your solitude a new creativity awakens in youβ
βOne can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.β
βWe live in capitalism its power seems inescapable so did the divine right of kings any human power can be resisted and changed by human beingsβ
β Ursula K. Le Guin
βWhen you rest in quietness and your image of yourself fades and your image of the world fades and your ideas of others fade what is left a luminous empty awarenessβ
β Adyashanti
βHe who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.β
βIn silence and in quiet the devout soul advances and learns the hidden meaningsβ
βThe mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitudeβ
βAttention is the rarest and purest form of generosityβ
β Simone Weil
βSolitude matters and for some people it is the air that they breatheβ
β Susan Cain
βIf you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.β
βSilence is a true friend who never betraysβ
βThe moment one gives close attention to anything even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious worldβ
β Henry Miller
βWhat is poetry which does not save nations or peopleβ
β Czeslaw Milosz
βThe person who has not learned to be alone is a person who does not know themselves.β
βThere is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better stronger richer quicker or smarter everything is within everything exists nowhere elseβ
β Miyamoto Musashi
βSilence is the true teaching it is the perfect teaching it is suited only for the most advanced seekerβ
β Ramana Maharshi
βNot thinking about anything is Zen once you know this walking sitting or lying down everything you do is Zenβ
β Bodhidharma
βSilence is not the absence of sound but the absence of selfβ
β Anthony de Mello
βIn silence there is eloquence stop weaving and see how the pattern improvesβ
βStillness is your essential nature what is stillness it is the inner space in which the words on this page are being perceivedβ
βThe sole cause of human unhappiness is that people do not know how to sit quietly in a roomβ
βWhat makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a wellβ
β Antoine de Saint-Exupery
βThere is no savor more sweet more salt than to be glad to be what woman and who myself I amβ
β Denise Levertov
β Thomas Keating
βSilence is not about hearing nothing silence is about hearing everything at onceβ
β Cynthia Bourgeault
βThe deepest thing I know is that I am living and dying at once and my conviction is to report that dialogueβ
β Stanley Kunitz
βWe must unlearn the constellations to see the starsβ
β Jack Gilbert
βWhat is most personal is most universalβ
β Carl Rogers
6 / 305 showing
