John Milton Quotes

Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.

The word must be heard in silence; there must be darkness to see the stars.

In solitude, where we are least alone.

Mankind have such a deep stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his life of thought and prayer.

In solitude we are in the presence of mere matter (even the sky, the stars, the moon, trees in blossom), things of less value (perhaps) than a human spirit. Its value lies in the greater possibility of attention.

Close your eyes and stare into the dark.

I go in solitude, so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think; after a time it always seems as if they want to banish myself from myself and rob me of my soul.

He who understands humanity seeks solitude

He who lives wisely to himself and his own heart looks at the busy world through the loopholes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray.

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

He got right down in the dark between heartbeats, and rested there. And then he saw that another one wasn't going to come. That's it. That's the last. He looked at the dark. I would like to take this opportunity, he said, to pray for another human being.

I love the dark hours of my being. My mind deepens into them. There I can find, as in old letters, the days of my life, already lived, and held like a legend, and understood.

Where the light is, and each thing clear,Separate from all others, standing in its place,I drink the time and touch whatever's near,And hope for day when the whole world has that face:For what assures her present every year?In dark accidents the mind's sufficient grace.

Sometimes I long for a convent cell, with the sublime wisdom of centuries set out on bookshelves all along the wall and a view across the cornfields--there must be cornfields and they must wave in the breeze--and there I would immerse myself in the wisdom of the ages and in myself. Then I might perhaps find peace and clarity. But that would be no great feat. It is right here, in this very place, in the here and the now, that I must find them.

Wisdom's self oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, where with her best nurse Contemplation, she plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings that in the various bustle of resort were all to-ruffled, and sometimes impaired.

Beauty beheld in solitude is even more lethal.

There is a moon inside every human being. Learn to be companions with it.

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 love tranquil solitude, And such society As is quiet, wise, and good; Between thee and me What difference? but thou dost possess The things I seek, not love them less.

The sum of evil, Pascal remarked, would be much diminished if men could only learn to sit quietly in their rooms.

I shan't be lonely now. I was lonely; I was afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light.

It is important that we have the inner richness to be able to look up at the stars or the moon and compose a poem once in a while. When we open wide our minds and fix our gaze on the universe, we fix our gaze on our own life.

Solitude is a way to defend the spirit against the murderous din of our materialism.

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.