SolitudeHappy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground. Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire; Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire. Blest, who can unconcern’dly find Hours, days, and years, slide soft away In health of body, peace of mind, Quiet by day. Sound sleep by night; study and ease Together mix’d, sweet recreation, And innocence, which most does please With meditation. Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; Thus unlamented let me die; Steal from the world, and not a stone Tell where I lie.

Uzunca bir süre kendine sığınaklar kurup yıktın: düzen ya da eylemsizlik, başıboş sürüklenme ya da uyku, geceleyin devriye gezmeler, yansız anlar,gölgelerin ve ışıkların kaçışı.Daha uzun bir süre kendine yalan söylemeyi,kendini sersemleştirmeyi,kendi oyununa gelmeyi sürdürebilirsin belki.Ama oyun bitti,büyük şenlik,ertelenmiş yaşamın yalancı sarhoşluğu bitti.Dünya yerinden kıpırdamadı ve sen değişmedin. Kayıtsızlık seni farklı kılmadı.

You end up isolated if you don't cultivate the capacity for solitude, the ability to be separate, to gather yourself. Solitude is where you find yourself so that you can reach out to other people and form real attachments. When we don't have the capacity for solitude, we turn to other people in order to feel less anxious or in order to feel alive. When this happens, we're not able to appreciate who they are. It's as though we're using them as spare parts to support our fragile sense of self. We slip into thinking that always being connected is going to make us feel less alone. But we're at risk, because actually it's the opposite that's true.

Cantor illustrated the concept of infinity for his students by telling them that there was once a man who had a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, and the hotel was fully occupied. Then one more guest arrived. So the owner moved the guest in room number 1 into room number 2; the guest in room number 2 into number 3; the guest in 3 into room 4, and so on. In that way room number 1 became vacant for the new guest.What delights me about this story is that everyone involved, the guests and the owner, accept it as perfectly natural to carry out an infinite number of operations so that one guest can have peace and quiet in a room of his own. That is a great tribute to solitude.

Intimacy between people requires closeness as well as distance. It is like dancing. Sometimes we are very close, touching each other or holding each other; sometimes we move away from each other and let the space between us become an area where we can freely move.To keep the right balance between closeness and distance requires hard work, especially since the needs of the partners may be quite different at a given moment. One might desire closeness while the other wants distance. One might want to be held while the other looks for independence. A perfect balance seldom occurs, but the honest and open search for that balance can give birth to a beautiful dance, worthy to behold.

...the solitude was intoxicating. On my first night there I lay on my back on the sticky carpet for hours, in the murky orange pool of city glow coming through the window, smelling heady curry spices spiraling across the corridor and listening to two guys outside yelling at each other in Russian and someone practicing stormy flamboyant violin somewhere, and slowly realizing that there was not a single person in the world who could see me or ask me what I was doing or tell me to do anything else, and I felt as if at any moment the bedsit might detach itself from the buildings like a luminous soap bubble and drift off into the night, bobbing gently above the rooftops and the river and the stars.

Looking at the rain through my window,I can’t find an answer to this merciless solitude—The same solitude that sprouts from my eyes,A bittersweet tear which haunts me like a shadow.During evenings like this my life is about sad memories.At times I believe you’re so evil, but at end of the day you make the effort to change what my mind tells.Why don’t you turn away and let me find the love that I need?I hope you will never abandon my life and when that beautiful day comesI am going to thank you for being my lovely company.You! Eternal loneliness that poisons me-Don’t feel miserable due to these words,I only use you to drown my sorrows, to not die alone in omission.

In any love-story there are usually two stages or phases. There is the initial stage, where love is expressed by the giving of gifts, especially the gift of self. Then there comes a time when it is no longer enough to give gifts to the beloved, but one has to be ready to suffer for her or for him. Only then can it be seen whether the love is real. In the story of a vocation to consecrated virginity there are also usually two stages. There is the initial stage of the vocation, when, spurred on by grace and attracted by the ideal, one joyfully and enthusiastically says, "Yes, Lord, here I am!" Then comes the time of solitude of heart, of weariness, of crisis, when, in order to maintain that "Yes," one has to die

The LakeIn spring of youth it was my lotTo haunt of the wide world a spotThe which I could not love the less-So lovely was the lonelinessOf a wild lake, with black rock bound,And the tall pines that towered around.But when the Night had thrown her pallUpon that spot, as upon all,And the mystic wind went byMurmuring in melody-Then-ah then I would awakeTo the terror of the lone lake.Yet that terror was not fright,But a tremulous delight-A feeling not the jewelled mineCould teach or bribe me to define-Nor Love-although the Love were thine.Death was in that poisonous wave,And in its gulf a fitting graveFor him who thence could solace bringTo his lone imagining-Whose solitary soul could makeAn Eden of that dim lake.

At the foundation of the Christian life, there is a kind of sacred individuality, a sort of holy aloneness that cries out to be left alone with God. This isn't all of the Christian life. It doesn't erase those parts of a Christian's experience that happen in the context of relationships, but this sacred solitude needs to be discovered, respected, and protected.It is that place where we most irrefutably hear God tell us that he loves us, and we come to know that, no matter what other people may say about us or do to us, God will not abandon us. That holy solitude is the place where we find God's Spirit changing our affections and redirecting our identities. It is, for Jesus-followers, holy ground.

To SolitudeO Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,— Nature’s observatory—whence the dell, Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep ’Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell. But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee, Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind, Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d, Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be Almost the highest bliss of human-kind, When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

Он действительно побывал на том свете, но не смог вынести одиночества и возвратился назад («Сто лет одиночества», Г.Г. Маркес)

Prime numbers are divisible only by 1 and by themselves. They hold their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed, like all numbers, between two others, but one step further than the rest. They are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they'd been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other times he suspected that they too would have preferred to be like all others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn't do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies.

Many voices ask for our attention. There is a voice that says, 'Prove that you are a good person.' Another voice says, 'You’d better be ashamed of yourself.' There also is a voice that says, 'Nobody really cares about you,' and one that says, 'Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful.' But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says, 'You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you.' That’s the voice we need most of all to hear. To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen.That’s what prayer is. It is listening to the voice that calls us 'my Beloved'.

Tant que mes jambes me permettent de fuir, tant quemes bras me permettent de combattre, tant quel'expérience que j'ai du monde me permet de savoirce que je peux craindre ou désirer, nulle crainte : jepuis agir. Mais lorsque le monde des hommes mecontraint à observer ses lois, lorsque mon désir briseson front contre le monde des interdits, lorsque mesmains et mes jambes se trouvent emprisonnées dansles fers implacables des préjugés et des cultures,alors je frissonne, je gémis et je pleure. Espace, jet'ai perdu et je rentre en moi-même. Je m'enferme aufaite de mon clocher où, la tête dans les nuages, jefabrique l'art, la science et la folie.