___________________________________________ /\ \ / \ THE COMMONPLACE BOOK \ / \ ───────────────────────────────── \ / \ A Digital Florilegium \ /________\_________________________________________\ | | | | ☙ | "Reading maketh a full man; | | | writing, an exact man" | | ❧ | — Francis Bacon | |_________|________________________________________|

The Commonplace Book

A Digital Florilegium

§ On Solitude

The productive wilderness of being alone

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

— Laurence Sterne

"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

"Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius."

— Edward Gibbon

"I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time."

— Henry David Thoreau

"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."

— Michel de Montaigne

"We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly...spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order."

— Susan L. Taylor

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

— Aristotle

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

— Jean-Paul Sartre

"Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition."

— Octavio Paz

"Without great solitude no serious work is possible."

— Pablo Picasso

"One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude."

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

— Henry David Thoreau

"The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone."

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Solitude vivifies; isolation kills."

— Joseph Roux

"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

✎ What feels like failure is often just feedback.

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