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Solitude

Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It 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 Johannes Tillich, The Eternal Now

There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall. – Colette

In a soulmate we find not company but a completed solitude. – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements. – Henry David Thoreau

But on the first day came veiled spirits from all hours into his soul… a soft intoxication, which the atmosphere of nature, like that of a wine-store, communicated to him, spread itself, like an enchanted solitude around his soul. – Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Hesperus, or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography,

Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are. – Robert Cecil

The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit. – Marya Mannes

In solitude, where we are least alone. – George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that’s where I renew my springs that never dry up. – Pearl Buck

What a commentary on civilization, when being alone is being suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it — like a secret vice. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Finding solitude in the concrete jungle is powerful and peaceful. – Mike Dolan, @HawaiianLife

With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves. – Eric Hoffer

When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death — ourselves. – Eda LeShan

No matter how reclusive we tend to be, we picture the after-life as a community of souls. It is one thing to seek privacy in this life; it is another to face eternity alone. – Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

I’m not anti-social. I’m pro-solitude. – Author Unknown

The reason old souls enjoy spending time alone is because they never really are. – Author Unknown

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. – Henry David Thoreau

Solitude coaxes magical things from our souls. – Terri Guillemets

Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known… then went crazy as a loon. – Matt Groening, The Simpsons, spoken by the character Lisa Simpson