How Solitude Feeds the Brain
In “Nature” — perhaps his finest essay, for being the most all-encompassing and spiritually lucid — he considers what solitude actually means, refuting the common conception of it as a kind of self-isolation from other selves behind the walls of seclusion, for even the thinking mind, the writing mind, the creating mind is a symposium of outside voi... See more
Maria Popova • Emerson on How to Trust Yourself and What Solitude Really Means
This is an insight that has been repeated by artists, too. Pablo Picasso: “Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.” James Baldwin: “Perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.” Bob Dylan: “To be creative you’ve got to be u... See more
Substack • Notes | Substack
Solitude can be a profound teacher. It can teach us how to hold ourselves—how to affirm ourselves and listen. How much is the sound of your own voice worth?
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
So solitude can mean introspection, it can mean the concentration of focused work, and it can mean sustained reading. All of these help you to know yourself better.
JamesClear.com • "Solitude and Leadership"
I love the idea of solitude being a gift. I think we can be afraid of being lonely, but if you figure out a way to own it and see it as a treasure and a pleasure and a joy, then it can be quite comforting. I have a place to go in my head that’s just my place, and no one ever gets to that place. I value that alone time so much. I wouldn’t be able to
... See moreJami Attenberg • I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home
A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert.
Henry David Thoreau • Walden (AmazonClassics Edition)
