Quotes About Hermits

In fact, by founding the Academy in the year 387 BC, Plato was envisaging a practical pattern of life in retreat that he had encountered shortly before on his first Sicilian journey. Near the city of Kroton (now called Crotone) in southern Italy, he had come upon a commune of hermits doing theory who were followers of the savant Pythagoras, a man of whom it was not known whether he was still a shaman or had already become a mathematician or was both at once.

To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.

The Meccan merchants had met Christian monks and hermits during their travels, and were familiar with the stories of Jesus and the concepts of Paradise and the Last Judgment. They called Jews and Christians the ahl al-kitab ("the People of the Book"). They admired the notion of a revealed text and wished they had sacred scripture in their own language.

On the other hand, although perhaps more rarely, happiness comes without any ego satisfaction. Monks, hermits, anchorites sometimes find this kind of happiness, but so do men and women who are simply content with what they have regardless of whether it is much or little. Ego satisfaction is a clear reflection of self, or as clear as the muddy water of experience will allow.

I grew up listening to pop; I grew up listening to '60s pop music, the Beatles, the Monkees, Herman's Hermits and all that stuff. So I had a very strong background of listening to great pop music.

All "paths of liberation" (brain-freeing schools) know that we cannot remain in the abyss of the nameless forever, unless we choose to become hermits. (Very few do.) Once we have returned from a school of brain-change to the ordinary world, we again must see and think in masks, or we will not have the ability to communicate with and deal with others.

Leave the wonder of a bird wing or the simplicity of the blade of grass to the saints and the hermits. Most men need to be overwhelmed in order to appreciate the divine.

My kids and I live like three fun-loving hermits. We're quite bohemian.

A man may begin by following the craving of desire, until he comes to see how hollow and unreal a thing is life, how deceitful are its pleasures, what horrible aspects it possesses; and this it is that makes people hermits, penitents, Magdalenes.

Progress isn't achieved by preachers or guardians of morality, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics

Do leaguèd powers of sin conspire To balk religion's pure desire? Has wrong been done to beasts that roam Contented round the hermits' home? Do plants no longer bud and flower, To warn me of abuse of power? These doubts and more assail my mind, But leave me puzzled, lost, and blind.

Particularly in the East, in the fourth and fifth centuries, dirtiness became a uniquely Christian badge of holiness. This particular mortification of the flesh was known as alousia, "the state of being unwashed," and was largely chosen by hermits, monks and saints.

Men were drawn to civilization; only the most severe ascetic among them relished isolation. Penitent hermits craved seclusion. Being away from the squalor of humanity was an integral part of their spiritual monasticism. They could talk more readily to God in the silence of their mountaintop cave or their desert isolation. It was easier to believe that the voice you heard responding to your queries issued from a divine trumpet if there were no other souls nearby. But he was a soldier.

New York has more hermits than will be found in all the forests, mountains and deserts of the United States.

A man could no longer be private and withdrawn. The world allows no hermits.

The trembling hermits sought his aid, And bade him with his sword and bow Destroy the fiends who worked them woe: To come like Indra strong and brave

Instead of Gnostics, we have Existentialists and God-is-dead theologians, instead of Neo-Platonists, devotees of Zen, instead of desert hermits, heroin addicts and Beats (who also, oddly enough, seem averse to washing), instead of mortification of the flesh, sado-masochistic pornography; as for our public entertainments, the fare offered by television is still a shade less brutal than that provided by the Amphitheatre, but only a shade and may not be so for long.

He was never once bored. He wasn't sure, he said, that he even understood the concept of boredom. It applied only to people who felt they had to be doing something all the time, which from what he'd observed was most people. Hermits of ancient China had understood that wu wei, "non-doing," was an essential part of life, and Knight believes there isn't nearly enough nothing in the world anymore.

There's an ocean of hermit literature; I began my reading on one shore, with Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching (I recommend the Red Pine translation), and started swimming from there. Excellent explorations of the history and motivations of hermits include Solitude by Anthony Storr, A Pelican in the Wilderness by Isabel Colegate, Hermits by Peter France, and Solitude by Philip Koch.

Hermits of ancient China had understood that wu wei, "non-doing," was an essential part of life, and Knight believes there isn't nearly enough nothing in the world anymore.

SUFISM is not different from the mysticism of all religions. Mysticism comes from Adam (God's Peace upon him). It has assumed different shapes and forms over many centuries, for example, the mysticism of Jesus (God's Peace upon him), of monks, of hermits, and of Muhammed (God's Peace and Blessings upon him). A river passes through many countries and each claims it for its own. But there is only one river.

To the desert go prophets and hermits; through desert go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.

To the desert go profits and hermits, through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality.