Philosophy in 40 Ideas: Lessons for life

By retreating into ourselves, it looks as if we are the enemies of others, but our solitary moments are in reality a homage to the richness of social existence. Unless we’ve had time alone, we can’t be who we would like to be around our fellow humans. We won’t have original opinions. We won’t have lively and authentic perspectives. We’ll be – in th

Dwelling inwardly for extended periods, we come to know something of the poverty of always looking outside ourselves for happiness, understanding, and wisdom.

We might choose to live outside a large metropolis, not to push ourselves forward for promotion, to avoid the limelight, and to do a satisfactory but undramatic kind of work. We can discover the subtle greatness of a life in which we exercise our virtues on a domestic canvas, in which we do not seek to be known by people we don’t ourselves know and

“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”