John Stuart Blackie Quotes

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.

I would say to today's young minister, 'Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation'.

Being alone has a power over me that never fails. My interior dissolves (for the time being only superficially) and is ready to release what lies deeper. When I am willfully alone, a slight ordering of my interior begins to take place and I need nothing more.

The New England spirit does not seek solutions in a crowd; raw light and solitariness are less dreaded than welcomed as enhancers of our essential selves.

Only in quietness do we possess our own minds and discover the resources of the Inner Life.

Solitude is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it.

You grow your best thoughts in silence, solitude, and meditation. When you relax and think deeply, you are giving your inmost powers their best opportunity to disclose themselves.

I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature.

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.

I aspire only to silence.

Begin within. If it shows up in your life, it's coming to tell you something about you that you're acting like you don't know. Something about yourself, or your relationship with God.

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

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

It takes me forever to say my prayers these days, but I don't care, because this time around, I want to make sure God doesn't have to do any guesswork.

I found thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking thee without that wert within.

Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.

You take your problems to a god, but what you really need is for the god to take you to the inside of you.

I drank the silence of God from a spring in the woods.

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

I enjoy my own thoughts sometimes.

Every one should find some suitable time, day or night, to sink into his depths, each according to his own fashion. Not every one is able to engage in contemplative prayer.

When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.

Sit with silence a lot - real silence, where nothing is happening - because you learn so much in those moments of quiet.

When at a loss about something, go and take counsel by yourself. For in the midst of shouting, the advantageous course is not to be seen, but as one reasons with oneself, it shines out clear.

I use solitude as a judge and as a person - a lot.