Seclusion Quotes

Somewhere in his heart he had recognized who she was. His dominant wish, however, was to go a little longer without recognizing her. The woman's face floating in its dark seclusion, no name yet attached to it, had the character of a mysterious, lovely apparition. It was like the scent of the fragrant olive which, as one walks along a path at night, tells of the blossoms before one sees them. Isao wanted to keep things just as they were, if only for an instant more. At this moment a woman was a woman, not someone with a name attached to her.

And that was not all. Because of her hidden name, because of the agreement not to speak that name, she was transmuted into a marvelous essence, like a moonflower, its supporting vine invisible, floating high up in the darkness. This essence which preceded existence, this phantasm which preceded reality, this portent which preceded the event conveyed with unmistakable force the presence of a substance yet more powerful. This presence which showed itself as gliding through air - this was woman.

Isao had yet to embrace a woman. Still, never so strongly at this moment, when he keenly sensed this "womanliness that preceded woman," had he felt that he too knew what ecstasy meant. For this was a presence that he could even now embrace. In time, that is, it had drawn near with an exquisite subtlety, and in space it was only a little distant. The affectionate emotion that filled his breast was like a vapor that could envelop h ~ Yukio Mishima

In the case of the solitary, his seclusion, even when it is absolute and ends only with life itself, has often as its primary cause a disordered love of the crowd, which so far overruled every other feeling that, not being able to win, when he goes out, the admiration of his hall-porter, of the passers-by, of the cabman whom he hails, he prefers not to be seen by them at all, and with that object abandons every activity that would oblige him to go out of doors. ~ Marcel Proust

Love God's people. Because we have come here and shut ourselves within these walls, we are no holier than those that are outside, but on the contrary, from the very fact of coming here, each of us has confessed to himself that he is worse than others, than all men on earth ... And the longer the monk lives in his seclusion, the more keenly he must recognise that. Else he would have no reason to come here. When he realises that he is not only worse than others, but that he is responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual, only then the aim of seclusion is attained. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The royal Mongol women raced horses, commanded in war, presided as judges over criminal cases, ruled vast territories, and sometimes wrestled men in public sporting competitions. They arrogantly rejected the customs of civilized women of neighboring cultures, such as wearing the veil, binding their feet, or hiding in seclusion. ~ Jack Weatherford

In private life, human beings spend a great deal of time in seclusion behind closed doors (e.g., in bathrooms and bedrooms) and other partitions designed to shield their bodies from prying eyes. Scientists have determined that too much visual monitoring can be harmful to human health. ~ David B. Givens

This could get a little hairy," I tell them in interruption.

Seriously, I don't want to know this secret. I've got too much other shit going on.

I grimace at the very questionable intestines that belong to some fabled creature that surely can't exist under the radar if all that fit inside it. "If you're a respawner instead of an unkillable being, get out of the kitchen and at least a mile from the house."

Mom assured me there's a five mile seclusion radius.

Damien starts speaking to me, almost as though he's too tired to deal with my tinkering right now. "Violet, that potion has to be fresh. There's no need-"
...
There's a loud, bubbling, sizzling noise that cracks through the air, and I drop to the floor, as a pulse shoots from the pot.

Damien yelps, as he and Emit are thrown into one wall, and Mom curses seconds before she and Arion are launched almost into each other, hitting opposing walls instead, when they manage to twist in the air to avoid touching.

Everyone crashes to the ground at almost the same time. Groans and grunts and coughs of pain all ring out in annoyed unison.

"I warned you," I call out, even as most of them narrow their eyes in my direction.

Damien shoots me a look of exasperation, and I shrug a shoulder.

"She did warn us," Mom grumbles as she remains lying on the floor, while everyone else pushes to their feet.

"No one fucks up a potion ~ Kristy Cunning

The charms of seclusion are seldom combined with the conveniences of civilization. ~ Ethel Smyth

Beauty

Void lay the world, in nothingness concealed,
Without a trace of light or life revealed,
Save one existence which second knew-
Unknown the pleasant words of We and You.
Then Beauty shone, from stranger glances free,
Seen of herself, with naught beside to see,
With garments pure of stain, the fairest flower
Of virgin loveliness in bridal bower.
No combing hand had smoothed a flowing tress,
No mirror shown her eyes their loveliness
No surma dust those cloudless orbs had known,
To the bright rose her cheek no bulbul flown.
No heightening hand had decked the rose with green,
No patch or spot upon that cheek was seen.
No zephyr from her brow had fliched a hair,
No eye in thought had seen the splendour there.
Her witching snares in solitude she laid,
And love's sweet game without a partner played.
But when bright Beauty reigns and knows her power
She springs indignant from her curtained bower.
She scorns seclusion and eludes the guard,
And from the window looks if doors be barred.
See how the tulip on the mountain grown
Soon as the breath of genial Spring has blown,
Bursts from the rock, impatient to display
Her nascent beauty to the eye of day.
When sudden to thy soul reflection brings
The precious meaning of mysterious things,
Thou canst not drive the thought from out thy brain;
Speak, hear thou must, for silence is suc ~ Nūr Ad-Dīn 'Abd Ar-Rahmān Jāmī

The wise oyster stays in its shell. ~ Marty Rubin

Perhaps, in the future, when machines have attained to a state of perfection - for I confess that I am, like Godwin and Shelley, a believer in perfectibility, the perfectibility of machinery - then, perhaps, it will be possible for those who, like myself, desire it, to live in a dignified seclusion, surrounded by the delicate attentions of silent and graceful machines, and entirely secure from any human intrusion. ~ Aldous Huxley

Man is not to fight with other human races, other human individuals, but his work is to bring about reconciliation and Peace and to restore the bonds of friendship and love. We are not like fighting beasts. It is the life of self which is predominating in our life, the self which is creating the seclusion, giving rise to sufferings, to jealousy and hatred, to political and commercial competition. All these illusions will vanish, if we go down to the heart of ~ Rabindranath Tagore

What a terrible thing it would be to be the Pope! What unthinkable responsibilities to fall on your shoulders at an advanced age! No privacy. No seclusion. No sin. ~ Roger Ebert

A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Solitude and quiet are highly desirable, but the lack of them is no barrier to writing ... The will to work builds all the seclusion that one needs. ~ John Braine

If you have ever come upon a grove that is thick with ancient trees rising far above their usual height and blocking the view of the sky with their cover of intertwining branches, the loftiness of the forest, the seclusion of the spot, and your wonder at the unbroken shade in the midst of open space will create in you a sense of the divine (numen). Or, if a cave made by the deep erosion of rocks supports a mountain with its arch, a place not made by hands but hollowed out by natural causes into spaciousness, then your mind will be aroused by a feeling of religious awe (religio). We venerate the sources of mighty rivers, we build an altar where a great stream suddenly bursts forth from a hidden source, we worship hot springs, and we deem lakes sacred because of their darkness or immeasurable depth. (Seneca the Younger, Letters 41.3) ~ Valerie M. Warrior

The mystery of the spiritual life is that Jesus desires to meet us in the seclusion of our own heart, to make his love known to us there, to free us from our fears, and to make our own deepest self known to us Each time you let the love of God penetrate deeper into your heart it leads to a love of ourselves that enables us to give whole-hearted love to our fellow human beings. In the seclusion of our hearts we learn to know the hidden presence of God; and with that spiritual knowledge we can lead a loving life. ~ Henri Nouwen

The philosophers make still another objection: "What you gain in rigour," they say, "you lose in objectivity. You can rise toward your logical ideal only by cutting the bonds which attach you to reality. Your science is infallible, but it can only remain so by imprisoning itself in an ivory tower and renouncing all relation with the external world. From this seclusion it must go out when it would attempt the slightest application. ~ Henri Poincare

While at home his heart dwelt in the silent forests of spiritual thoughts, beating in tune with eternal Pranava-Nada (mystic sound of the Eternal) of the Jnana Ganga (river of Knowledge) within himself. The seven years at home following his return from Tirupati were marked by seclusion, service, intense study of spiritual literature, self-restraint, control of the senses, simplicity in food and dress, abandonment of all comforts and practice of austerities which augmented his inner spiritual power. ~ SRI SWAMI CHIDANANDA

Every person who was a genius, a mental giant, or a great contributor to the human race watered the seeds of his greatness from the well of isolation, until the seed became a plant, and then finally, a formidable tree. ~ Aaidh Ibn Abdullah Al-Qarni

If you are alone in seclusion you are not alone at all. ~ Aiyaz Uddin

Go into seclusion and rest your mind on the silence. ~ Dharma Mittra

She had thought of literature all these years (her seclusion, her rank, her sex must be her excuse) as something wild as the wind, hot as fire, swift as lightning; something errant, incalculable, abrupt, and behold, literature was an elderly gentleman in a grey suit talking about duchesses…

Orlando then came to the conclusion (opening half-a-dozen books)…that it would be impolitic in the extreme to wrap a ten-pound note round the sugar tongs when Miss Christina Rossetti came to tea…next (here were half-a-dozen invitations to celebrate centenaries by dining) that literature since it all these dinners must be growing very corpulent; next (she was invited to a score of lectures on the Influence of this upon that; the Classical revival; the Romantic survival, and other titles of the same engaging kind) that literature since it listened to all these lectures must be growing very dry; next (here she attended a reception given by a peeress) that literature since it wore all those fur tippets must be growing very respectable; next (here she visited Carlyle's sound-proof room at Chelsea) that genius since it needed all this coddling must be growing very delicate… ~ Virginia Woolf

Speaking generally, sociability stands in inverse ratio with age. A little child raises a piteous cry of fright if it is left alone for only a few minutes; and later on, to be shut up by itself is a great punishment. Young people soon get on very friendly terms with one another; it is only the few among them of any nobility of mind who are glad now and then to be alone; - but to spend the whole day thus would be disagreeable. A grown-up man can easily do it; it is little trouble to him to be much alone, and it becomes less and less trouble as he advances in years. An old man who has outlived all his friends, and is either indifferent or dead to the pleasures of life, is in his proper element in solitude; and in individual cases the special tendency to retirement and seclusion will always be in direct proportion to intellectual capacity. For ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. ~ Henry Miller

My aunt must have been perfectly well aware that she would not see Swann again, that she would never leave her own house any more, but this ultimate seclusion seemed to be accepted by her with all the more readiness for the very reason which, to our minds, ought to have made it more unbearable; namely, that such a seclusion was forced upon her by the gradual and steady diminution in her strength which she was able to measure daily, which, by making every action, every movement 'tiring' to her if not actually painful, gave to inaction, isolation and silence the blessed, strengthening and refreshing charm of repose. ~ Marcel Proust

Saving a life just got much more important than savouring a lifestyle. ~ Amit Kalantri

The daily decisions made to stay, to find the new equilibrium. She likes the intimacy, the shared seclusion, efforts at inclusion. How these pockets of time are big enough for only the two of them to share, and how that feels overwhelming, but also incandescent and right. ~ Jay E. Tria

The best convent for a woman is the seclusion of her own home. There she may find her vocation and fight her battles, and there she may learn the reality and the earnestness of life. ~ Elizabeth Prentiss

grave monsters of fable in deeps of the ferny forest danced minuets that witches had made of their whims and their laughter, long ago long ago in their youth before cities had come to the world. And the trees of the forest heavily lifted slow roots out of the ground and swayed upon them uncouthly and then danced as on monstrous claws, and the insects danced on the huge waving leaves. And in the dark of long caverns weird things in enchanted seclusion rose out of their age-long sleep and danced in the damp ~ Lord Dunsany

Genuine tranquility of the heart and perfect peace of mind, the highest blessings on earth after health, are to be found only in solitude and, as a permanent disposition, only in the deepest seclusion. ~ Schopenhauer

The fact I choose to live my life without being bullied into seclusion, makes me a stronger person. I will not be led. ~ Emma Paul

Bhutan all but bases its identity upon its loneliness, and its refusal to b assimilated into India, or Tibet, or Nepal. Vietnam, at present, is a pretty girl with her face pressed up against the window of the dance hall, waiting to be invited in; Iceland is the mystic poet in the corner, with her mind on other things. Argentina longs to be part of the world it left and, in its absence, re-creates the place it feels should be its home; Paraguay simply slams the door and puts up a Do Not Disturb sign. Loneliness and solitude, remoteness and seclusion, are many worlds apart. ~ Pico Iyer

Give to a wounded heart seclusion; consolation nor reason ever effected anything in such a case. ~ Honore De Balzac

Untouchability shuts all doors of opportunities for betterment in life for Untouchables. It does not offer an Untouchable any opportunity to move freely in society; it compels him to live in dungeons and seclusion; it prevents him from educating himself and following a profession of his choice. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

Social distancing is staying away from people not from your purpose. ~ Amit Kalantri

Since she had arrived for her stay at the artists' colony called Les Beaux Arts at the Chateau DeRoche, she'd noticed something different about the owner, Antoine Chevalier. And not just the way his eyes bore into hers, shooting shivers through her and making it difficult to breathe. His quiet nature, his preference for seclusion for days at a time, and his still, composed temperament belied an intensity within. Noir eyes that rarely blinked spoke of haunted depth and smoldering passion. ~ Lisa Carlisle

No temperance society which is well officered and which has the real good of our fellow-men in view, will ever get drunk save in the seclusion of its temperance hall. ~ Mark Twain

What are they doing here, these difficult young persons and their still more difficult guardians? This - this sacred Elysian garden of the great humanistic tradition of classic wisdom and classic art - must not be invaded by clamorous babes and agitated elders, must not be profaned either by the plaudits or the strictures of the unlettered mob. Somewhere in human life, and where should it be if not in the cloistered seclusion of noble literature? - there must be an escape from the importunities of such people and from the responsibilities of the ignorance they so jealously guard. ~ John Cowper Powys

As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

In total seclusion, enlightening, I found the origin of my being. ~ Kristian Goldmund Aumann

Never trust the occultist who tells you that he is the head of a tradition, because if he were, in the first place, he would not tell the fact to the uninitiated, and in the second place he would in all probability be living in great seclusion and inaccessible to all but his immediate subordinates. If a man is a great artist he does not need to inform us of the fact; we shall know him by his pictures that are hung in the galleries of the nation, and we shall, moreover, find that he guards himself from casual acquaintances because of the inroads on his time to which his fame renders him liable. The more eminent a person, the harder he is to approach, not out of any spirit of pride and exclusiveness, but because so many people want to see him that discrimination has to be used in admitting them. ~ Dion Fortune

My sister's disposition was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favoured and fostered her tendency to seclusion; except to go to church or take a walk on the hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home. Though her feeling for the people round was benevolent, intercourse with them she never sought; nor, with very few exceptions, ever experienced. And yet she knew them: knew their ways, their language, their family histories; she could hear of them with interest, and talk of them with detail, minute, graphic, and accurate; but with them, she rarely exchanged a word.

(On her sister, Emily) ~ Charlotte Bronte

Do you know that she came here Monday afternoon and spent some hours in this house?" "Yes, I know." "Do you know what she came for?" "I know nothing definite. I have heard conjectures." "I won't ask you from whom or what. I am aware, Miss Duday, that in coming here this evening you people were impelled only partly by the threat of a legal action by Mrs. Jaffee. You also hoped to learn what Miss Eads came to see me for and what she said. I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you. I have given a complete report to the police, or Mr. Goodwin has, and if they don't care to publish it neither do I. But I will ask you, do you know of any reason why, on Monday, Miss Eads should have decided to seek seclusion? Was she being harassed or frightened by anyone?" "On Monday?" "Yes. ~ Rex Stout

I find the treatment of royalty distinctly peculiar. The royal family lives in palaces heavily screened from prying eyes by fences, grounds, gates, guards, all designed to ensure the family absolute privacy. And every newspaper in London carried headlines announcing PRINCESS ANNE HAS OVARIAN CYST REMOVED. I mean you're a young girl reared in heavily guarded seclusion and every beer drinker in every pub knows the precise state of your ovaries. ~ Helene Hanff

HIBERNATE, v. i. To pass the winter season in domestic seclusion. There have been many singular popular notions about the hibernation of various animals. Many believe that the bear hibernates during the whole winter and subsists by mechanically sucking its paws. It is admitted that it comes out of its retirement in the spring so lean that it has to try twice before it can cast a shadow. ~ Ambrose Bierce

All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others. ~ Virginia Woolf

No one church has all the answers or the perfect map to the Promised Land, and I prefer to work out my own faith and my own convictions in the seclusion of my own mind. ~ Charley Pride

of the day she was tiring of Sidney's seclusion. ~ Kathryn B. Butler

So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Why, since man and woman were created for each other, had He made their desires so dissimilar? Why should one class of women be able to dwell in luxurious seclusion from the trials of life, while another class performed their loathsome tasks? Surely His wisdom had not decreed that one set of women should live in degradation and in the end should perish that others might live in security, preserve their frappeed chastity, and in the end be saved. ~ Madeleine Albright

His efforts to break out of his essential seclusion were, in fact, a failure, and he knew it. He made no close friend. He copulated with a number of girls, but copulation was not the joy it ought to be. It was a mere relief of need, and he felt ashamed of it afterward because it involved another person as object. Masturbation was preferable, the suitable course for a man like himself. Solitude was his fate; he was trapped by his heredity. She [his mother] had said it: "The work comes first." Rulag had said it calmly, stating fact, powerless to change it, to break out of her cold cell. So it was with him. His heart yearned towards them, the kindly young souls who called him brother, but he could not reach them, nor they him. He was born to be alone, a damned cold intellectual, an egoist.
The work came first, but it went nowhere. Like sex, it ought to have been a pleasure, and it wasn't. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The initiate, a boy of no more than twelve, was wailing and a group of older boys were holding him down on a log while a few men cut into him, making hundreds of small slits on his back and shoulders. They dropped a citrus mixture into each wound so that the skin would puff up and the scars would be raised and textured to look like crocodile skin. His blood had soaked the log in dark striations. When they were done they painted him with oil and turmeric and smeared him with white clay and carried him off weeping and half conscious into seclusion until he healed. Fen and I walked down to the beach. I'd seen dozens ~ Lily King

Take young researchers, put them together in virtual seclusion, give them an unprecedented degree of freedom and turn up the pressure by fostering competitiveness. ~ James D. Watson

Distance means so little, when life means so much. ~ Amit Kalantri

Silverlake-Echo was several miles due est of Mount lee, a hilly area with lots of twisting streets, greenery and seclusion, the kind of terrain a necrophiliac might find soothing. ~ James Ellroy

Infants never learn to soothe themselves to sleep. They learn, abandoned in seclusion, that no matter the volume of their despondence, no matter the force of their tears, when they are alone and frightened, no-one will ever come to their rescue. Infants do not soothe themselves. They merely surrender. And it is caged in their cribs where the infants learn, in the face of their demons, to remain silent and submitting. ~ C. Sean McGee

In isolation you just lose the company but don't lose the purpose. ~ Amit Kalantri

Cosette, in her seclusion, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, was slowly bringing these two beings near each other, fully charged and all languishing with the stormy electricities of passion, - these two souls which held love as two clouds hold lightning, and which were to meet and mingle in a glace like clouds in a flash.
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks which two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.
At that particular moment when Cosette unconsciously looked with this glance which so affected Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he also had a glance which affected Cosette. ~ Victor Hugo

Have no doubt it is fear in the land. For what can men do when so many have grown lawless? Who can enjoy the lovely land, who can enjoy the seventy years, and the sun that pours down on the earth, when there is fear in the heart? Who can walk quietly in the shadow of the jacarandas, when their beauty is grown to danger? Who can lie peacefully abed, while the darkness holds some secret? What lovers can lie sweetly under the stars, when menace grows with the measure of their seclusion? ~ Alan Paton

Regalverborgenheiten" word found in Gabriele Wohmann's short story "Die Feindin" meaning the comforting seclusion of being surrounded by book cases. ~ Gabriele Wohmann

Such altruism, generated in the seclusion of one's own thoughts, becomes a subtle means of evading concrete inter-personal responsibility and of justifying to oneself a life of peaceful uninvolved isolation from others. We proclaim to ourselves our love and compassion for such abstract entities as 'humanity' or 'all sentient beings' in order to avoid having to love any one person. ~ Stephen Batchelor

We do not have to look about us very far or for very long to realize the disastrous effects produced on the inner life of man by this age of noise. Spun about in the whirl of business, enslaved to countless technical inventions, man is severed from God and from the world of the spirit. Non in commotione Deus: God does not dwell in turbulence. To find him, there must be calm within; certain senses must be hushed. Tossed around as we are, if God wishes to speak to us, his voice, small and still, will be lost in the hubbub of our daily lives; the rackets and noise drowning our minds will prevent his penetration into that seclusion we call "heart"–the living witness of that life in us which is most sacred and most true: the life we call "inner" or "spiritual. ~ Jean Déchanet

A Monk's life has to do with simplicity, curiosity and compassion - contrary to the popular notion, it has no direct relation to poverty and seclusion. ~ Abhijit Naskar

In the problem of women was the germ of a solution, not only for their oppression, but for everybody's. The control of women in society was ingeniously effective. It was not done directly by the state. Instead the family was used- men to control women, women to control children, all to be preoccupied with one another , to turn to one another for help, to blame one another for trouble, to do violence to one another when things weren't going right. Why could this not be turned around? Could women liberating themselves, children freeing themselves, men and women beginning to understand one another, find the source of their common oppression outside rather than in one another? Perhaps then they could create nuggets of strength in their own relationships, millions of pockets of insurrection. They could revolutionize thought and behavior in exactly that seclusion of family privacy which the system had counted on to do its work of control and indoctrination. And together, instead of at odds- male, female, parents, children- they could undertake the changing of society itself. ~ Howard Zinn

Where have I been? she wondered. Is a life that can now be considered an absence a life?

For some time things had been going badly for her. She could cite nothing in particular as a problem; rather, it was as if life in general had a grudge against her. Things persisted in turning grey. Although at first she had revelled in the erudite seclusion of her job, in the protection against the vulgarities of the world that it offered, after five years she now felt that in some way it had aged her disproportionately, that she was as old as the yellowed papers she spent her days unfolding. When, very occasionally, she raised her eyes from the past and surveyed the present, it faded from her view and became as ungraspable as a mirage. Although she had discussed this with the Director, who had waved away her condition of mind as an occupational hazard, she was still not satisfied that this was how the only life she had been offered should be lived. ~ Marian Engel

I am a free man - and I need my freedom. I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company. What do you want of me? When I have something to say, I put it in print. When I have something to give, I give it. Your prying curiosity turns my stomach! Your compliments humiliate me! Your tea poisons me! I owe nothing to any one. I would be responsible to God alone - if He existed! ~ Giovanni Papini

My stories were translated and had many reviews before I had an interview with any international or Arab newspaper. If the stories hadn't succeeded, you wouldn't have asked me my position on Arab festivals and I wouldn't have been interested in the festivals anyway, because I would be in seclusion, writing. ~ Hassan Blasim

Each one of us is an individual, just like talk show hosts are different from one another, and newspaper columnists are different from each other. So, former presidents are different from each other, too. Some have gone into relative seclusion. Some have decided to teach. ~ Jimmy Carter

Approaching the Start of Civil Exams

Perhaps I was once a young Chinese scholar
approaching the start of civil exams,
my mind grown weary and sad from seclusion
with books on syntax and poetic style.

All that I knew were the mist-covered mountains
and sweet white blossoms of mountain apples
that grew in the valleys of my province.

But I had been gone over six years
busy with studies in the Heavenly City
empty and thin despite my work.

I showed my verses to an older poet
who told me a truth I longed to believe:
all knowledge is futile and barren
which does not open the love of your friends. ~ Jim Chapson

Those who live in retirement, whose lives have fallen amid the seclusion of schools or of other walled-in and guarded dwellings, are liable to be suddenly and for a long while dropped out of the memory of their friends, the denizens of a freer world. Unaccountably, perhaps, and close upon some space of unusually frequent intercourse - some congeries of rather exciting little circumstances, whose natural sequel would rather seem to be the quickening than the suspension of communication - there falls a stilly pause, a wordless silence, a long blank of oblivion. Unbroken always is this blank; alike entire and unexplained. The letter, the message once frequent, are cut off; the visit, formerly periodical, ceases to occur; the book, paper, or other token that indicated remembrance, comes no more.

Always there are excellent reasons for these lapses, if the hermit but knew them. Though he is stagnant in his cell, his connections without are whirling in the very vortex of life. That void interval which passes for him so slowly that the very clocks seem at a stand, and the wingless hours plod by in the likeness of tired tramps prone to rest at milestones - that same interval, perhaps, teems with events, and pants with hurry for his friends.

The hermit - if he be a sensible hermit - will swallow his own thoughts, and lock up his own emotions during these weeks of inward winter. He will know that Destiny designed him to imitate, on occasion, the dormouse, and he wi ~ Charlotte Bronte

In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion. ~ Quintilian

You wish to rule the Dreaming City; you must excel in all its ways. Play with me, a single game of Lo Shen. If you best me, I will go into seclusion as you ask, and you will ascend to the Tower without the slightest argument, and without battle. No one will contest you, and you will rule as well as you are able. If you lose, however, you must disband your army, and take the vows of one of our Towers, enter it as a novice, and pledge yourself to our City for the rest of your days. In the Anointed City, this is the way disputes are settled. If you would rule us, you must behave as one of us. Show me that you are the rightful Papess. Show me that you exceed us in all things."
Ragnhild seemed to laugh, but no sound issued from her rosy mouth. Her eyes glittered like snowflakes catching the sun. "You cannot be serious. A single game to decide five hundred years of history?"
"Were it not that once my predecessor harmed you, I would simply kill you where you stand. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Orlando was unaccountably disappointed. She had thought of
literature all these years (her seclusion, her rank, her sex must be
her excuse) as something wild as the wind, hot as fire, swift as
lightning; something errant, incalculable, abrupt, and behold,
literature was an elderly gentleman in a grey suit talking about
duchesses. ~ Virginia Woolf

I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself. ~ Elisabeth Shue

How often did he feel it now, this gorgeous, furtive seclusion? In the bath sometimes, maybe. Though Jean failed to understand his need for periodic isolation and regularly dragged him back to earth mid-soak by hammering on the locked door in search of bleach or dental floss. ~ Mark Haddon

You must suffer me to go my own dark way. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Your life is an island separated from all other islands and continents. Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness ~ Khalil Gibran

Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble himself further about their entertainment. The putting of dispersed sets of volumes together, or the turning right way up of those which the dusting housemaid has left in an apoplectic condition, appeals to them as one of the lesser Works of Mercy. Happy in these employments, and in occasionally opening an eighteenth-century octavo, to see 'what it is all about,' and to conclude after five minutes that it deserves the seclusion it now enjoys, I had reached the middle of a wet August afternoon at Betton Court ...
-the beginning of the story A Neighbor's Landmark ~ M.R. James

What can my enemies do to me? My paradise is in my heart, it is with me wherever I go. To imprison me is to provide me with seclusion. To send me into exile is to send me away in the Path of Allah. And to kill me is to make me a martyr. ~ Ibn Taymiyyah

He showed it to me with all the confiding zest of a man who has been living too much alone. This seclusion was overflowing now in an excess of confidence, and I had the good luck to be the recipient. ~ H.G.Wells

The moon seems to shine back at her the increased need of intimacy, of secrecy and seclusion the war has made everyone feel. ~ Glenn Haybittle

Are there any who don't heal?"
Christian's throat tightened at her question - that she would be so compassionate, when any other lady of her stature would be demanding the lives of the men who had assaulted her. It was something his mother would have done. "Unfortunately, aye. There are always some who can't adjust. Some kill themselves once they arrive home. A few have gone mad, and some, such as the Scot, live in perpetual torment and seclusion from the world."
She reached up to place her fingertips to his lips as she stared up at him with a warm, tender expression. "I wish you had come home to me so that I could have helped you."
He pulled the cloth away from her face and stared at her for a hard second. "Had I known what was waiting for me, my lady, I would have."
-Adara & Christian ~ Kinley MacGregor

Only a fraction of sane people enjoy their own company. The rest endure it. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Politically I am neither left nor right! And this kind of political-ethical standpoint
being in the middle
usually brings about seclusion and isolation! But now I do not mind it anymore and, instead, I work more and more in my self-made solitude! ~ Javad Alizadeh

she was never to be allowed to exchange a word with him; and that she was forbidden to pay him a visit even when he was ailing. He was quarantined from her as if she had been suffering from the plague. She was actually forbidden to converse with Simon the shoemaker, the boy's tutor, from whom she might have gleaned a little information about her son. His seclusion from her was to be unconditional and absolute. ~ Stefan Zweig

To live with lucidity a simple, quiet, discreet life among intelligent books, loving a few beings. ~ Nicolas Gomez Davila

I have lost my spark, I'm told, and should seek to rekindle it. Respecting the messenger, I wonder if this is true. I feel as if my spark endures, but having opened up to the world so bright, perhaps it no longer shines by comparison. So, without a word, I slip back into seclusion to nurture my beautiful inner glow. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

To lessen or destroy sexual pleasure is to lessen temptation; a fallback in case the religious injunctions on veiling and seclusion somehow fail to do the job. ~ Geraldine Brooks

…And in truth, the sun, the seclusion, the nights passed beneath the wheeling stars, the silence, the scant nourishment, the study of remote subjects wove around me a spell that predisposed me to marvels. ~ Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa

Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther). ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born. That is why many of the earthly miracles have had their genesis in humble surroundings."
~ Tesla

There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can offer will tempt them to work; so eaten up by vice that virtue is abhorrent to them, and so inveterately dishonest that theft is to them a master passion. When a human being has reached that stage, there is only one course that can be rationally pursued. Sorrowfully, but remorselessly, it must be recognized that he has become lunatic, morally demented, incapable of self-government, and that upon him, therefore, must be passed the sentence of permanent seclusion from a world in which he is not fit to be at large. ~ William Booth

I owe no duty to the forum, the election ground or the senate; I am ... no barking pleader, no judge, no soldier, no king; I have withdrawn from the populace. My only business is with myself. I have no care save not to care. The better life you would more enjoy in seclusion than in publicity. But you will decry me as indolent ... None is born for another, being destined to die for himself. ~ Tertullian

To express open creativity, you first need to create your own space of seclusion. ~ Anthony Liccione

In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is,
the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It
shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed
must be openly spoken and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron (Ps. 107: 16). ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Men seek for seclusion in the wilderness, by the seashore, or in the mountains - a dream you have cherished only too fondly yourself. But such fancies are wholly unworthy of a philosopher, since at any moment you choose you can retire within yourself. Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul; above all, he who possesses resources in himself, which he need only contemplate to secure immediate ease of mind - the ease that is but another word for a well-ordered spirit. Avail yourself often, then, of this retirement, and so continually renew yourself. ~ Marcus Aurelius

Law school is a test – not a test of strength, creativity, or intelligence – but one of endurance. A law student's greatest nemesis is not mastering legal concepts, but enduring the hours of solitude, which endless studying requires. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

This seclusion of the artist with his work, sometimes misconceived as a selfish thing, is in truth as needful a tool as any, if a vision is to be made clear to others. And all the men I have known do creative work obtained it; either mechanically, by the walls of a workroom, or by that withdrawal into themselves which is part of their power. ~ Georgiana Burne-Jones

I'm kind of an antisocial person. I realised when I was playing in bands that I wasn't that comfortable being on-stage, and I preferred to be behind-the-scenes. I like the seclusion of composing. ~ Cliff Martinez

Just why it should have happened, or why it should have happened just when it did, he could not, of course, possibly have said; nor perhaps could it even have occurred to him to ask. The thing was above all a secret, something to be preciously concealed from Mother and Father; and to that very fact it owed an enormous part of its deliciousness. It was like a peculiarly beautiful trinket to be carried unmentioned in one's trouser-pocket - a rare stamp, an old coin, a few tiny gold links found trodden out of shape on the path in the park, a pebble of carnelian, a sea shell distinguishable from all others by an unusual spot or stripe-and, as if it were anyone of these, he carried around with him everywhere a warm and persistent and increasingly beautiful sense of possession. Nor was it only a sense of possession - it was also a sense of protection. It was as if, in some delightful way, his secret gave him a fortress, a wall behind which he could retreat into heavenly seclusion.

("Silent Snow, Secret Snow") ~ Conrad Aiken