I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but
delicious in the years of maturity.
Albert Einstein
The Conditions of a Solitary Bird
The conditions of a solitary bird are five:
The first, that it flies to the highest point;
The second, that it does not suffer for company,
not even of its own kind;
The third, that it aims its beak to the skies;
The fourth, that it does not have a definite color;
The fifth, that it sings very softly.
these are the words of
San Juan de la Cruz in his "Sayings of Light and Love"
and quoted in "Journey to Ixtlan" by Carlos Castaneda
It is better to live alone in the desert,
than with a crabby, complaining wife.
Proverbs 21:19
Writing is a solitary occupation.
Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer.
He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage
if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.
Jessamyn West
Loneliness is the poverty of self;
solitude is the richness of self.
May Sarton
I love people. I love my family, my children . . .
but inside myself is a place where I live all alone
and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.
Pearl S. Buck
What I must do is all that concerns me,
not what the people think.
This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life,
may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.
It is the harder, because you will always find
those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion;
it is easy in solitude to live after our own;
but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd
keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection.
Keep your solitude.
The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection
there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse.
It is even by this infallible sign that you will recognize it.
Simone Weil
It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers.
The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them….
Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.
Thomas Merton
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 33)
That he was never less at leisure than when at leisure:
nor that he was ever less alone than when alone.
[Lat., Nunquam se minus otiosum esse quam cum otiosus;
nec minus solum quam cum solus esset.]
Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Officiis (bk. III, ch. I)
I praise the Frenchman; his remark was shrewd,--
"How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude."
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper--Solitude is sweet.
William Cowper
Source: Retirement (l. 739), quotation is also attributed to Jean de la Bruyere
and to Jean Louis Guez de Ba
Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!
William Cowper
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 1)
Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm,
and enthusiasm is the true parent of genius.
In all ages solitude has been called for--has been flown to.
Isaac D'Israeli
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. X)
There is a society in the deepest solitude.
Isaac D'Israeli
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. X)
So vain is the belief that the sequestered path has fewest flowers.
Thomas Doubleday
Source: Sonnet--The Poet's Solitude
Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove,
Far from the clamorous world; doth live his own;
Though solitary, who is not alone,
But doth converse with that eternal love.
William Drummond (1)
Source: Urania; or, Spiritual Poems
I was never less alone than when by myself.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife.
A bore is a person who deprives you of solitude
When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him
keep her.
After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin;
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy.
Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them.
The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is,
I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me.
"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage.
"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."
"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic
banking.
"I've had bad luck with both my wives.
Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming
The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it
once...
You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to.
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong.
Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy.
A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: "Wife wanted".
First Guy (proudly): "My wife's an angel!"
Edward Gibbon
Source: Memoirs (vol. I, p. 117)
Thomas Gray
Source: Elegy in a Country Churchyard (st. 19)
without providing you with company.
Gian Vincenzo Gravina
A Few Wise Words On Marriage
Sacha Guitry
they just
can't face each other, but still they stay together.
Hemant Joshi
If you get
a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates
Dumas
"What
does a woman want?
Sigmund Freud
Anonymous
We take time to go to
a restaurant two times a week.
A little candlelight, dinner, soft music
and dancing.
She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
Henny Youngman
Sam Kinison
It's called marriage."
James Holt McGavran
The first one left me, and the
second one didn't."
Patrick Murray
1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it,
2. Whenever you're right, shut up.
Nash
Anonymous
Henny Youngman
Rodney Dangerfield
Milton Berle
Anonymous
Next day he
received a hundred letters.
They all said the same thing:
"You can have
mine."
Anonymous
Second Guy: "You're lucky, mine's still alive."
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