#de

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#company #privacy #solitude #solitude

Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. ↗

— Aristotle

#solitude

To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world. ↗

— Anthony Burgess

#privacy #solitude #solitude

I need solitude for my writing; not 'like a hermit' - that wouldn't be enough - but like a dead man. ↗

— Franz Kafka

#writing #solitude

What does he say?' he asked. 'He’s very sad,’ Úrsula answered, ‘because he thinks that you’re going to die.' 'Tell him,' the colonel said, smiling, 'that a person doesn’t die when he should but when he can. ↗

— Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

#solitude

Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence. ↗

— Henri J.M. Nouwen

#christianity #faith #feelings #identity #rejection

Do all of you think we have fleas?" Decebel asked as he looked at Jen and Sally. "I think we just make an assumption because of the hair and what not, that you, ya know, might have a problem with the little buggers when you in your wolf form. ↗

— Quinn Loftis

#decebel #jen #ya

Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers' enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others. ↗

— Simone Weil

#democracy #fascism #military #police #military

Your arrogance doesn't cheapen me. ↗

— Toba Beta

#cheapen #pride #secret #arrogance

He smiled and squinted at me again, tilting his head up and to the right as he stared. “Maybe what I’m attracted to in you is more than your looks and your brain and your humor.” He leaned closer like he had a secret. “It could be your soul,” he whispered. I pushed his cheek until he was squinting at the door to the kitchen instead. “Is this when you tell me I’m your soul mate, O’Neill? ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#artist #attraction #dating #glass-girl #henry-whitmire