Ingmar Bergman Quotes

There is much to be said for solitude.

One's need for loneliness is not satisfied if one sits at a table alone. There must be empty chairs as well.

Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn't have to be a lonely kind of thing.

I have lately got back to that glorious society called Solitude.

I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.

The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.

Every man whose business it is to think knows that he must for part of the day create about himself a pool of silence.

Silence is so powerful, so important. There is so much to be learned from it.

In silence, we have an opportunity to reflect, listen, and gain new insights about ourselves. In silence, we can think, feel, and most important of all, breathe. When you seek guidance, understanding, clarity, or peace of mind, the first step is to master the art of silence and to rethink the value of solitude.

Wisdom grows in quiet places.

Perhaps it is possible to discover more in silence than in speech. Or perhaps it is only that those who are silent among us learn to listen.

Loneliness is black coffee and late-night television; solitude is herb tea and soft music. Solitude, quality solitude, is an assertion of self-worth, because only in the stillness can we hear the truth of our own unique voices.

To be silent; to be alone. 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.

There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. I can understand the concept of being a monk for a while.

Some of the most powerful times are when we're quiet.

Listen to the sound of silence.

As before, there is a great silence, with no end in sight. The writer surrenders, listening.

Solitude sometimes is best society.

Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society's hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.

I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions; the trick to living alone up here, away from all agitating entanglements, allurements, and expectations, apart especially from one's own intensity, is to organize the silence, to think of its mountaintop plenitude as capital, silence as wealth exponentially increasing. The encircling silence as your chosen source of advantage and your only intimate.

I named this place Listening Point because only when one comes to listen, only when one is aware and still, can things be seen and heard. Everyone has a listening point somewhere. It does not have to be in the north or close to the wilderness, but someplace of quiet where the universe can be contemplated with awe.

Time is one's best friend, teaching best of all the wisdom of silence.

Solitude is a place where all is quiet - except the beating of your heart.

Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment. Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart.