Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself
If you’re not talkin’ to yourself, you talkin’ to the wrong people. —Cajun proverb
Kenneth Atchity • Write Time: Guide to the Creative Process, from Vision through Revision—and Beyond
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
In today’s world, the practice of solitude becomes the practice of silence, being quiet and alone and
Ken I. McLeod • Reflections on Silver River
There seem to be two distinct concerns for Illich. The first is that we lose the commons of which silence is an integral part and thus a measure of freedom and agency. The second, concurrent with the first, is that you and I may find it increasingly hard to be heard even as we are given more and more tools with which to speak. Alternatively, we mig... See more
L. M. Sacasas • Impossible Silences - The Convivial Society
We’re riddled with pointless talk, insane quantities of words and images. Stupidity’s never blind or mute. So it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say.