Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.

One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

When you walk 10 hours, 11 hours a day by yourself, you are doing a walking meditation.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit.

A resolute and wise refusal to take part in festivities will be an incentive for introspection and self-purification.

He whom God hath gifted with a love of retirement possesses, as it were, an extra sense.

The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude.

Solitude is one of our great superpowers... Solitude is the key to being able to make effective decisions and then having the courage of convictions to stand behind those decisions.

Solitude is such a potential thing. We hear voices in solitude, we never hear in the hurry and turmoil of life; we receive counsels and comforts, we get under no other condition.

I mean, I can't say that I've had many deep thoughts because I traveled alone, but it's good to be with myself in the quiet.

No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.

If the mind loves solitude, it has thereby acquired a loftier character, and it becomes still more noble when the taste is indulged in.

I like to be alone. I am focused on what I am doing. I feel the nature and I feel my body. It's so simple.

The love of solitude, when cultivated in the morn of life, elevates the mind to a noble independence, but to acquire the advantages which solitude is capable of affording, the mind must not be impelled to it by melancholy and discontent, but by a real distaste to the idle pleasures of the world, a rational contempt for the deceitful joys of life, and just apprehensions of being corrupted and seduced by its insinuating and destructive gayeties.

Instead of yielding to idle conversation it might profit one to cultivate silence and contemplation.

After all it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life.

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.

Contemplation and wisdom are highest achievements and man is not totally at home with them.

I'm a very interior person. I love silence. I revel in it. I'm happy that way.

It is only in solitude that I ever find my own core.

You want to read a book? That requires introspection. It requires time away from people and time away from the constant need to communicate and to connect.

I think I'm a spiritual person. I don't really go to church often when services are on, but I like going in when they are empty and quiet, and just sitting there and thinking for a little while.

Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit, but God to man doth speak in solitude.