The quote database

Great minds are like eagles, and build their nest in some lofty solitude.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.

Peace of mind is impossible without a considerable amount of solitude.

This west coast makes me remember with pleasure the free, unbounded plains of Patagonia; yet, with the true spirit of contradiction, I cannot forget how sublime is the silence of the forest.

To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.

One may be happy to a good degree, I think, in a faithful friend, a moderate fortune, and a retired life; further than this I know nothing to wish; but if there be anything beyond it, I wish it you.

you would wonder at seeing how possible it is to live as secludedly in the midst of a multitude as in the centre of solitude

For solitude is a virtue with us, as a sublime bent and bias to purity, which divines that in the contact of man and man--in society--it must be unavoidably impure.

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

The dear privacy and retirement and solitude which winter makes possible!

My most sacred and memorable life is commonly on awaking in the morning.

Now at least the moon is full, and I walk alone, which is best by night, if not by day always.

I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one's life and sigh.

As there are silent depths in the ocean which the fiercest storm cannot reach, so there are silent, holy depths in the heart of man which the storms of sin and sorrow can never disturb.

Nature loves such woods, and places her own seal upon them.

Standing here in the deep, brooding silence all the wilderness seems motionless, as if the work of creation were done.

Every feature became more rigidly alpine, without, however, producing any chilling effect; for going to the mountains is like going home.

Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.

Thousands of God's wild blessings will search you and soak you as if you were sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted.

Only spread a fern frond over a man's head and worldly cares are cast out, and freedom and beauty and peace come in.

A wise man is never so busy as in the solitary contemplation of God and the works of Nature.

if it has in store any of what I may call the food of study and philosophy, nothing can be pleasanter than an old age of leisure

For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensations, deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the stars.