Solitude Quotes

What would you tell them?

I like this new word.

If there’s anything the people in the world need right now, it’s this.

Feeling lonely?

“…These are among the most important times in one’s life–when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artists knows he must be alone to create; the writer to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

The real competition.

Accurate.

Time by yourself >>>

Do you have such a place?

“A library is a good place to soften solitude. A place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you’re all alone. The library is a whispering post. You don’t need to take a book off the shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen.”
Susan Orlean

Can you hear it?

Feeling on edge?

Sometimes, it’s exactly the tune I need.

19 Quotes from Narrow Road To The Interior on Solitude, Travel, and Poetry

Excerpt: These quotes from Narrow Road To The Interior capture a beauty in what’s seemingly plain that’ll elevate your perspective for better living.

All along this road
not a single soul—only
autumn evening
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 168)

Great solitude required.

“The silence was profound. I sat, feeling my heart begin to open.”
Bashō, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page 26)

“Despite his ability to attract students, he seems to have spent much of his time in a state of perpetual despondency, loneliness everywhere crowding in on him. No doubt this state of mind was compounded by chronically poor health, but Bashō was also engaging true sabishi, a spiritual loneliness that served haikai culture in much the same way mu or ‘nothingness’ served Zen.”
Sam Hamill, Narrow Road To The Interior (Page XXXI)

“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.”
May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“Many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing 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 escape.”
bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Solitude Quotes

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