#solitude

If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to the forest, not as a wood lot, or even as a necessary agricultural principle but as a sacred grove - a place where the Creation is let alone, to serve as instruction, example, refuge; a place for people to go, free of work and presumption, to let themselves alone. (pg. 125, The Body and the Earth) ↗

— Wendell Berry

#nature #refuge #solitude #wilderness #art

Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#beauty

There was something lacking – in him, he thought, not in the place. He was not up to it. He was not strong enough to take what was so generously offered. He felt himself dry and arid, like a desert plant, in this beautiful oasis. Life on Anarres had sealed him, closed off his soul; the waters of life welled all around him, and yet he could not drink. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#beauty

I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail leading into the unknown to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bread by cities... it is enough that I am surrounded by beauty. ↗

— Everett Ruess

#nature #solitude #beauty

The devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. He will not allow quietness. ↗

— Elisabeth Elliot

#quiet #solitude #business

Consider A Move The steady time of being unknown, in solitude, without friends, is not a steadiness that sustains. I hear your voice waver on the phone: Haven't talked to anyone for days. I drive around. I sit in parking lots. The voice zeroes through my ear, and waits. What should I say? There are ways to meet people you will want to love? I know of none. You come out stronger having gone through this? I no longer believe that, if I once did. Consider a move, a change, a job, a new place to live, someplace you'd like to be. That's not it, you say. Now time turns back. We almost touch. Then what is? I ask. What is? ↗

— Michael Ryan

#moving #solitude #change

I think solitude is a really positive thing. I cherish solitude immensely. In today’s society, there’s so much pressure to communicate, eat out, be friends with people. Why can’t you read a book on your own? Why have you got to have a book club? ↗

— Nicky Wire

#communication

Language ... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone. ↗

— Paul Tillich

#independence #language #loneliness #pain #paradox

Way far back in the beginning of the world was the whirlwind warning that we could all be blown away like chips and cry- Men with tired eyes realize it now, and wait to deform and decay- with maybe they have the power of love yet in their hearts just the same, I just don't know what that word means anymore- All I want is an ice cream cone ↗

— Jack Kerouac

#death #ennui #solitude #death

Divide the constant tide and random noisiness of energetic flow, with conscious recurring moments of empty mind, solitude, gratitude and deep...slow...breathing. Of this, the natural law of self-preservation demands. ↗

— T.F. Hodge

#breathing #conscious #deep #divide #division