Solitude Quotes

He shall be the greatest who can be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, the superabundant of will; this shall be called greatness: the ability to be as manifold as whole, as vast as full.' And, to ask it again: is greatness - possible today?

The greatest events - they are not our loudest but our stillest hours.

Solitude makes us tougher towards ourselves and tenderer towards others. In both ways it improves our character.

The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.

Loneliness is one thing, solitude another.

One must learn to love oneself with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam.

I am alone again and I want to be so; alone with the pure sky and open sea.

What do you plan to do in the land of the sleepers? You have been floating in a sea of solitude, and the sea has borne you up. At long last, are you ready for dry land? Are you ready to drag yourself ashore?

But he who is hated by the people, as the wolf by the dogs - is the free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-adorer, the dweller in the woods.

I go in solitude, so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think; after a time it always seems as if they want to banish myself from myself and rob me of my soul.

In solitude there grows what anyone brings into it, the inner beast too. Therefore solitude is inadvisable to many.

To live alone one must be a beast or a God, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both - a philosopher.

Whatever may be your desire to accomplish great deeds, the deep silence of pregnancy never comes to you! The event of the day sweeps you along like straws before the wind whilst ye lie under the illusion that ye are chasing the event,-poor fellows! If a man wishes to act the hero on the stage he must not think of forming part of the chorus; he should not even know how the chorus is made up.

Like the creatures of the forest and the sea, I love to lose myself for a while.

One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom-such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it-those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.

We become strong, I feel, when we have no friends upon whom to lean, or to look to for moral guidance.

Alone time is when I distance myself from the voices of the world so I can hear my own.

I am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and under the shadow of my own Vine and my own Fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments, of which the Soldier who is ever in pursuit of fame, the Statesman whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if this globe was insufficient for us all, and the Courtier who is always watching the countenance of his Prince, in hopes of catching a gracious smile, can have very little conception.

No free people can for long cling to any privilege or enjoy any safety in economic solitude... even we need markets in the world for the surpluses of our farms and our factories.

Mathematics, such as appertain to painting, are necessary to the painter, also the absence of companions who are alien to his studies: his brain must be versatile and susceptible to the variety of objects which it encounters, and free from distracting cares.