Personal Retreat Quotes

Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living.

Reading was like an addiction; I read while I ate, on the train, in bed until late at night, in school, where I'd keep the book hidden so I could read during class. Before long I bought a small stereo and spent all my time in my room, listening to jazz records. But I had almost no desire to talk to anyone about the experience I gained through books and music. I felt happy just being me and no one else. In that sense I could be called a stack-up loner.

He makes a solitude, and calls it - peace!

When I read books it's to escape. It's so I don't have to talk to people.

For myself, solitude is rather like a folded-up forest that I carry with me everywhere and unfurl around myself when I have need.

His retreat into himself is not a final renunciation of the world, but a search for quietude, where alone it is possible for him to make his contribution to the life of the community.

No man is an island, as they say. No. I've tried it. I've gone on retreats at various times in my life for three or four or five days. I was desperate to get out of there and talk to somebody. But I fly fish a lot, and I can only do that really by myself. I find I'm never lonesome when I'm on a river, far from it, but it's a lonely practice.

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

I detest talking about myself. There is a reason why people pick up an instrument and put it between themselves and the rest of the world.

I determined to spend the Remainder of my Days in privacy and Retirement with my Children, from whose Society alone I cou'd expect Comfort.

I know I have within myself... a side of solitude. I think people who know me can see, but people who just meet me can't because I'm generally very fun and gregarious. I love to spend a lot of time on my own. I can seriously go into my own head and often love to let myself travel where I don't know where I'm going. I always felt that that was his kind of form of escape, in a way.

If an artist wants to use his mind for creative work, cutting oneself off from society is a necessary thing

Excuse me if I have/some place in my mind/where I go time to time.

Throughout Jesus' ministry, He took time away from the crowds and even His disciples to pray by Himself. Jesus modeled the importance of not only serving God with our actions but of being still and drawing close to God to renew our souls.

Take time to be quiet. This is something that we don't do enough in this busy world of ours. We rush, rush, rush, and we are constantly listening to noise all around us. The human heart was meant for times of quiet, to peer deep within. It is when we do this that our hearts are set free to soar and take flight on the wings of our own dreams! Schedule some quiet "dream time" this week. No other people. No cell phone. No computer. Just you, a pad, a pen, and your thoughts.

I'm one of those introverted people who simply feels a lot better after spending time alone thinking through ideas and emotions. This is a sign, I've come to think, of a kind of emotional disturbance - a reaction to inner fragility. I wish I were more able to just act and do, rather than constantly have to retreat and examine and think.

My passion strengthens daily to quit political turmoil, and retire into the bosom of my family, the only scene of sincere and purehappiness.

I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to write.

Long ago the word alone was treated as two words, all one. To be all one meant to be wholly one, to be in oneness, either essentially or temporarily. That is precisely the goal of solitude, to be all one.

"Getting away from it all," many people want that, and of course ultimately the only way to get away from it all is to go within, now.

It is necessary now and then for a man to go away by himself and experience loneliness; to sit on a rock in the forest and to ask of himself, 'Who am I, and where have I been, and where am I going?'...If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one's time-the stuff of life

Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.

Give me, kind heaven, a private station, a mind serene for contemplation.

So, like I said, I will visit Jeffersonville more often because I now have a little getaway house up there.

Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.