…, and so made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self; but my books were always my friends, let fail all else.
― Joshua Slocum, Sailing Alone around the World

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As soon as we are alone
,…inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediately shut out all our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive…

The Infinite
It was always dear to me, this solitary hill, and this hedgerow here, that closes out my view, from so much of the ultimate horizon. But sitting here, and watching here, in thought, I create interminable spaces, greater than human silences, and deepest quiet, where the heart barely fails to terrify. When I hear the…

From that time on, the world was hers for the reading.
She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel…

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity
…, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of…

I care for myself. The more solitary, …
…the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

…and children are still the way you were
…as a child, sad and happy in just the same way and if you think of your childhood, you once again live among them, among the solitary children, and the grownups are nothing, and their dignity has no value. ― Rainer Maria Rilke