Quotes About Solitude

What he also records is his delight in discovering that, if only adults left him alone, he could, through reading, escape into a world of his own.

The capacity to be alone is a valuable resource when changes of mental attitude are required. After major alterations in circumstances, fundamental reappraisal of the significance and meaning of existence may be needed. In a culture in which interpersonal relationships are generally considered to provide the answer to every form of distress, it is sometimes difficult to persuade well-meaning helpers that solitude can be as therapeutic as emotional support.

Coming to terms with loss is a difficult, painful, and largely solitary process which may be delayed rather than aided by distractions. Any rituals which underline the fact that bereavement is a profoundly traumatic event are helpful.

That solitude promotes insight as well as change has been recognized by great religious leaders, who have usually retreated from the world before returning to it to share what has been revealed to them. Although accounts vary

In the next chapter, we shall look at some aspects of 'sensory deprivation'. As noise abatement enthusiasts have discovered, its opposite, sensory overload, is a largely disregarded problem. The current popularity of techniques like 'transcendental meditation' may represent an attempt to counterbalance the absence of silence and solitude which the modern urban environment inflicts upon us.

The desire for solitude as a means of escape from the pressure of ordinary life and as a way of renewal is vividly illustrated by Admiral Byrd's account of manning an advanced weather base in the Antarctic during the winter of 1934. He insisted on doing this alone.

In a culture in which interpersonal relationships are generally considered to provide the answer to every form of distress, it is sometimes difficult to persuade well-meaning helpers that solitude can be as therapeutic as emotional support.

The creative person is constantly seeking to discover himself, to remodel his own identity, and to find meaning in the universe through what he creates. He finds this a valuable integrating process which, like meditation or prayer, has little to do with other people, but which has its own separate validity. His most significant moments are those in which he attains some new insight, or makes some new discovery; and these moments are chiefly, if not invariably, those in which he is alone.

Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius; and the uniformity of a work denotes the hand of a single artist.' Edward Gibbon

With few exceptions, psychotherapists have omitted to consider the fact that the capacity to be alone is also an aspect of emotional maturity.

But observers have generally noted that such people are greatly absorbed with their own thoughts even when in company. Winnicott's paradoxical description of 'being alone in the presence of others may be relevant not only to the infant with its mother, but also to those who are capable of intense concentration and preoccupation with their own inner processes even when surrounded by other people.

My despair is less despair than boredom and loneliness.

To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods.

Bøkene er alltid tilgjengelige følgesvenner. Alderdom, ensomhet, lediggang, kjedsomhet, smerte og uro: Det finnes ikke den hverdagslige plage som bøkene ikke kan lindre, såfremt plagene ikke er for sterke. Bøkene mildner bekymringene og tilbyr trøst og støtte.

Biblioteket var hans tilfluktssted fra privatliv og offentlige oppgaver, fra verdens kjas og mas og samtidens uroligheter.

In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude.

I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams.

Surely a man needs a closed place wherein he may strike root and, like the seed, become. But also he needs the great Milky Way above him and the vast sea spaces, though neither stars nor ocean serve his daily needs.

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

What makes the desert beautiful,' said the little prince, 'is that somewhere it hides a well...

The field of consciousness is tiny. It accepts only one problem at a time.

It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

When snow falls, nature listens.

People who lead a lonely existence always have something on their minds that they are eager to talk about.