I go in solitude, so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think; after a time it always seems as if they want to banish myself from myself and rob me of my soul.
Solitude is the one place where we can gain freedom from the forces of society that will otherwise relentlessly mold us. Solitude requires relentless perseverance.
In the temple of his spirit, each man is alone.
Each life needs its own quiet place.
It's a dark, cool, quiet place. A basement in your soul. And that place can sometimes be dangerous to the human mind. I can open the door and enter that darkness, but I have to be very careful. I can find my story there. Then I bring that thing to the surface, into the real world.
In the circle of light on the state in the midst of darkness, you have the sensation of being entirely alone... This is called solitude in public... During a performance, before an audience of thousands, you can always enclose yourself in this circle, like a snail in its shell... You can carry it wherever you go.
The truth is you never can leave home. You take it with you everywhere you go. It's under your skin. It moves the tongue or slows it, colors the thinking, impedes upon the logic.
I felt impotent and out of control, which I really, really hate. I had to find sanctuary in a place where I could gather my thoughts and regain my strength.
Or at school you might have been prodded to come “out of your shell”—that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go, and that some humans are just the same.
...Blessed is anyone who knows who he or she really is and builds a place to live there.
Let my body dwell in poverty, and my hands be as the hands of the toiler; but let my soul be as a temple of remembrance where the treasures of knowledge enter and the inner sanctuary is hope.
For myself, solitude is rather like a folded-up forest that I carry with me everywhere and unfurl around myself when I have need.
To possess another language, Charlemagne tells us, is to possess another soul. German is such a language. Once you have it in your head, you can go there anytime, you can close the door, you have a refuge.
I create enclosed spaces mainly by means of thick concrete walls. The primary reason is to create a place for the individual, a zone for oneself within society. When the external factors of a city's environment require the wall to be without openings, the interior must be especially full and satisfying.
I have a room whereinto no one enters Save I myself alone: There sits a blessed memory on a throne, There my life centres.
Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee.
The conscience is the sacred haven of the liberty of man.
Worshipers never leave church...we carry our sanctuary with us wherever we go.
Piece of Heaven?" "No, that other place I'm going to go to for thinking what I'm thinking.
Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: 'You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests' - the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam; the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light.
We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.
Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Nowhere can a man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself.
The outer kingdom is not our real home. The inner kingdom is our everything.
Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house, a world; and beyond its world a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you: build, therefore, your own world.
Excuse me if I have/some place in my mind/where I go time to time.