Parker Palmer Quotes

To develop our real selves, we need time alone for thought and meditation. To be always giving out and never pumping in, the well runs dry.

To be in touch with yourself requires great sensitivity to everything that's going on here and now.

Inward solitude has outward manifestations. There is the freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from people but in order to hear the divine Whisper better.

Solitude is my element, and the reason is that extreme awareness of other people... precludes awareness of one's self so that after a while the self no longer knows that it exists.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

Lovers are not snails; they don't have to protrude from their shells and meet each other halfway. Meet me within your own self.

I'm most connected to myself when I'm alone in a room, moving my hand across a page. That's when I feel most like me.

Only in the reality of the present can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with ourselves and the world.

Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude.

We talk of communing with Nature, but 'tis with ourselves we commune... Nature furnishes the conditions - the solitude - and the soul furnishes the entertainment.

Spirituality is not about looking up or down - it's about looking inward.

Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit, simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justificat ion

Loneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person, the person who will be your mirror. Remember, only in another person's heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you.

In solitude, where we are least alone.

Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.

Gently resist the temptation to chase your dreams into the world; pursue them in your heart until they disappear into the Self, and leave them there.

It's only in silence that you can judge of your relationship to a person.

Once more I realize that solitude is my element, and the reason is that extreme awareness of other people (all naturally solitary people must feel this) precludes awareness of one's self, so after a while the self no longer knows that it exists.

I think a person needs to learn from childhood to find himself alone. It means to not be bored when you’re by yourself, because a person who finds himself bored when alone –as it seems to me– is in danger.

If the desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. There is no place to hide and so we are found.

The thoughtful man becomes a hermit in the thoroughfares of the marketplace.

Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life.

We can't underestimate the value of silence. We need to create ourselves, need to spend time alone. If you don't, you risk not knowing yourself and not realizing your dreams.

Awareness means grasping life just the way it is, without contamination by mental projections.

Your love will deepen as your meditation deepens, and vice-versa: as your meditation blossoms, your love will also blossom.