Pastoral Resources

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.

Cultivate solitude and quiet and a few sincere friends, rather than mob merriment, noise and thousands of nodding acquaintances.

We wrote verses that condemned us, with no hope of pardon, to the most bitter solitude.

From the night, his solitude, the poet finds day and starts a diary that is lethal to the inert. The dark landscape yields a dialogue.

Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone.

It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.

Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.

Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.

What one writer can make in the solitude of one room is something no power can easily destroy.

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

God is absence. God is the solitude of man.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.

To be exempt from the Passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing Solitude.

One can acquire everything in solitude except character.

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.

There is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.