#sol

I see you have returned, my love; and your mood is as dark as ever. Did your soldiers not adore you to your complete satisfaction? ↗

— Wayne Gerard Trotman

#commander #leadership #military #mood #narcissism

the condition of leadership adds new degrees of solitariness to the basic solitude of mankind. Every order that we issue increases the extent to which we are alone, and every show of deference which is extended to us separates us from our fellows. ↗

— Thornton Wilder

#soltitude #leadership

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#life #nor #poverty #simpler #simplify

I hate solitude, but I'm afraid of intimacy. The substance of my life is a private conversation with myself which to turn into a dialogue would be equivalent to self-destruction. The company which I need is the company which a pub or a cafe will provide. I have never wanted a communion of souls. It's already hard enough to tell the truth to oneself. ↗

— Iris Murdoch

#solitude #life

In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again(15). ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#dark #high #joy #kingsolver #life

I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure. ↗

— Roman Payne

#alone #aloneness #company #flowers #friends

We spend our life building higher fences and stronger locks, when the gravest dangers are already inside ↗

— Richard Paul Evans

#life

We are star stuff harvesting sunlight. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#humans #life #science #solar-power #star-stuff

I suffer from life and from other people. I can’t look at reality face to face. Even the sun discourages and depresses me. Only at night and all alone, withdrawn, forgotten and lost, with no connection to anything real or useful — only then do I find myself and feel comforted. ↗

— Fernando Pessoa

#reality #self-discovery #solitude #life

The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable. ↗

— Karl Kraus

#prison #solitude #life