This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Fatigue can make it hard to have faith. Too much busyness can make it hard to have faith. Too much of too little solitude can impact faith. For that matter, so can a bout of hunger or overwork, anything carried to an extreme. Faith thrives on routine. Look at any monastery and you will see that. Faith keeps on keeping on." - Julia Cameron
"One can acquire everything in solitude - except character." - Stendhal, pen name of Marie Henn Beyle or Marie-Henri Beyle NULL
"I can tell you that solitude is not all exaltation, inner space where the soul breathes and work can be done. Solitude exposes the nerve, raises up ghosts. The past, never at rest, flows through it." - May Sarton, pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton
"There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it." - May Sarton, pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton
"The values of solitude - one of its values - is, of course, that there is nothing to cushion against attacks from within, just as there is nothing to help balance at times of particular stress or depression. A few moments of desultory conversation...may calm an inner storm. But the storm, painful as it is, might have had some truth in it. So sometimes one has simply to endure a period of depression for what it may hold of illumination if one can live through it, attentive to what it exposes or demands. The reasons for depression are not so interesting as the way one handles it, simply to stay alive." - May Sarton, pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton
"Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there." - Meister Eckhart, formally Meister von Hochheim
"Inward solitude is that which cheiefly brings a Man to the purchase of Internal Peace." - Miguel de Molinos
"It is only in solitude, when it has broken the thick crust of shame that separates us from one another and separates us all from God, that we have no secrets from God; only in solitude do we raise our hearts to the Heart of the Universe; only in solitude does the redeeming hymn of supreme confession issue from our soul." - Miguel de Unamuno, fully Miguel de Unamuno y Jogo
"Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude." - Miguel de Unamuno, fully Miguel de Unamuno y Jogo
"Acquire knowledge, it enables its professor to distinguish right from wrong; it lights the way to heaven. It is our friend in the desert, our company in solitude and companion when friendless. It guides us to happiness, it sustains us in misery, it is an ornament amongst friends and an armor against enemies." - Muhammad, also spelled Mohammad, Mohammed or Mahomet, full name Muhammad Ibn `Abd Allāh Ibn `Abd al-Muttalib NULL
"The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It's quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch." - Nadine Gordimer
"And now I begin to understand why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber, and why I could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had sooner made my escape into the world, I should have grown hard and rough, and been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by rude encounters with the multi-tude.. ... But living in solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of my heart..... I used to think that I could imagine all passions, all feelings and states of the heart and mind; but how little did I know!...Indeed, we are but shadows—we are not endowed with real life, and all that seems most real about us is but the thinnest substance of a dream—till the heart be touched. That touch creates us,—then we begin to be,—thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of eternity. " - Nathaniel Hawthorne
"Self-reliance can turn a salesman into a merchant; a politician into a statesman; an attorney into a jurist; an unknown youth into a great leader. All are to be tomorrow's big leaders - those who in solitude sit above the clang and dust of time, with the world's secret trembling on their lips." - Newell Dwight Hillis
"Perhaps the logical question to ask at this point is: Why go? The answer is that when a man has been there and undergone the baptism of solitude he can't help himself. Once he has been under the spell of the vast luminous, silent country, no other places is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation of existing in the midst of something that is absolute. He will go back, whatever the cost in time or money, for the absolute has no price." - Paul Bowles
"It is useless to advise solitude for everyone; one must be strong enough to endure it and to work alone. " - Paul Gaugin, fully Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin
"Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone." - Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
"Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man are 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. Although, in daily life, we do not always distinguish these words, we should do so consistently and thus deepen our understanding of our human predicament. " - Paul Tillich, fully Paul Johannes Tillich
"God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly." - Paul Valéry, fully Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry
"A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
"Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline." - Peter Benchley, fully Peter Bradford Benchley
"Once more Uncontradicting solitude Supports me on its giant palm; And like a sea-anemone Or simple snail, there cautiously Unfolds, emerges, what I am. " - Philip Larkin, fully Philip Arthur Larkin
"Seriously, I think it is a grave fault in life that so much time is wasted in social matters, because it not only takes up time when you might be doing individual private things, but it prevents you storing up the psychic energy that can then be released to create art or whatever it is. It's terrible the way we scotch silence & solitude at every turn, quite suicidal. I can't see how to avoid it, without being very rich or very unpopular, & it does worry me, for time is slipping by, and nothing is done. It isn't as if anything was gained by this social frivolity, It isn't: it's just a waste. " - Philip Larkin, fully Philip Arthur Larkin
"I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity." - Albert Einstein
"I lived in solitude in the country and noticed how the monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind. " - Albert Einstein
"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude — a feeling which increases with the years. " - Albert Einstein
"Heaven is not gone, but we are blind with tears, Groping our way along the downward slope of years! I am not alone, For solitude like this is populous, And its abundant life of sky and sun, High-floating clouds, low mists, and wheeling birds, And waves that ripple shoreward all day long, Whether the tide is setting in or out, Forever rippling shoreward, dark and bright, As lights and shadows, and the shifting winds Pursue each other in their endless play, Is more than the companionship of man." - R. H. Stoddard, fully Richard Henry Stoddard
"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind." - Albert Einstein
"He who lives in solitude may make his own laws." - Publius Syrus
"Always the wish that you may find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe; that you may acquire more and more confidence in that which is difficult, and in your solitude among others." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"But your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"Embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant..." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.?This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"In a couple there is always that which is the guardian of the solitude of another." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"It is always what I have already said: always the wish that you may find patience enough in yourself to endure, and simplicity enough to believe; that you may acquire more and more confidence in that which is difficult, and in your solitude among others. And for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is right, in any case." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"It is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult. That something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it. It is also good to love: because love is difficult." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"It must be immense, this silence, in which sounds and movements have room, and if one thinks that along with all this the presence of the distant sea also resounds, perhaps as the innermost note in this prehistoric harmony, then one can only wish that you are trustingly and patiently letting the magnificent solitude work upon you, this solitude which can no longer be erased from your life; which, in everything that is in store for you to experience and to do, will act as an anonymous influence, continuously and gently decisive, rather as the blood of our ancestors incessantly moves in us and combines with our own to form the unique, unrepeatable being that we are at every turning of our life." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"Love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. Your solitude will be a support and a home for you." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"May you gain more and more confidence in what is difficult and in your solitude among other people." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"MUSIC: Take me by the hand; it's so easy for you, Angel, for you are the road even while being immobile. You see, I'm scared no one here will look for me again; I couldn't make use of whatever was given, so they abandoned me. At first the solitude charmed me like a prelude, but so much music wounded me." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"Never forget that solitude is my lot ... I implore those who love me to love my solitude." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"People have (with the help of conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult; everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult is a certainty that will not forsake us; 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.To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"Suddenly I'm as if cast out, and this solitude surrounds me as something vast and unbounded, when my feeling, standing on the hills of my breasts, cries out for wings or for an end." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"Suddenly, from all the green around you, something-you don't know what-has disappeared; you feel it creeping closer to the window, in total silence. From the nearby wood you hear the urgent whistling of a plover, reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome: so much solitude and passion come from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide away from us, cautiously, as though they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying. And reflected on the faded tapestries now; the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long childhood hours when you were so afraid." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"There is probably no point in my going into your questions now; for what I could say about your tendency to doubt or about your inability to bring your outer and inner lives into harmony or about all the other thing that oppress you - : is just what I have already said: just the wish that you may find in yourself enough patience to endure and enough simplicity to have faith; that you may gain more and more confidence in what is difficult and in your solitude among other people. And as for the rest, let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke
"Your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes, far in the distance." - Rainer Maria Rilke, full name René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke