Thomas De Quincey Quotes

To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about, I need to spend large amounts of time alone.

If you spend enough time with yourself in silence, you'll be surprised what goes through your head.

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

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.

Being alone & actually sitting with our own thoughts can lead to such growth and realizations that are rare in our everyday busy lives.

We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly - spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.

I personally think that's incredibly therapeutic to just be alone in your own thoughts and not be freaking out.

I think alone time is good to know how to be alone with your own thoughts. I think it just helps you kind of be a better, more grounded person.

Since I was young, I've been aware that I need time to myself to process everything.

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

Travelling alone was like laundry for my thoughts.

There is no doubt that solitude is a challenge and to maintain balance within it a precarious business. But I must not forget that, for me, being with people or even with one beloved person for any length of time without solitude is even worse. I lose my center. I feel dispersed, scattered, in pieces. I must have time alone in which to mull over my encounter, and to extract its juice, its essence, to understand what has really happened to me as a consequence of it.

Turning 30 was really big for me. I can get really stuck on 'I don't like this or that about myself.' I've found that the only thing that breaks that for me is being able to spend time alone, going to the movies by myself or going to art museums alone. I do that a lot. I've discovered the importance of even 15 or 30 minutes a day where it is just me.

I'm a super spiritual person, so every now and then I'll say, "Everyone, get out of my room because I need 15 minutes by myself to just sit alone." I have a chapter in my book [How to Be a Bawse] called "Pause," and basically, the idea is one of the ways to be successful is to reflect back on your successes and everything you've achieved.

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.

Productive work, love and thought are possible only if a person can be, when necessary, quiet and alone. To be able to listen to oneself is the necessary condition for relating oneself to others.

It is a difficult lesson to learn today-to leave one's friends and family and deliberately practice the art of solitude for an hour or a day or a week. And yet, once it is done, I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before.

I've never just been able to be alone, and I'm obsessed with being alone and hearing my thoughts. I'm trying to take this alone time — the five minutes I do have a day — to learn as much as I can.

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.

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.

Solitude. One knows instinctively it has benefits that must be more deeply satisfying than those of other conditions, but still it is difficult.

Getting close to books, and spending time by myself, I was obliged to think about things I would never have thought about if I was busy romping around with a brother and sister.

I constantly try to reinvent my sensibilities and my ideas. I enjoy some of the satisfaction that I get when I feel good about what I've done. But the process is quite lonely and quite painful.

Now that I'm older, I have a much better appreciation of nature, and I love being alone.