QUOTATION: The Difference Between Loneliness and Solitude

Loneliness is painful; Solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

--Henri Nouwen

QUOTATION: Noise

All of man’s problems come from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

--Blaise Pascal

QUOTATION: Solitude

Worldlings shun solitude, and with good reason; for in solitude they feel more acutely the remorse of conscience, and therefore they go in search of the conversations and tumults of the world, that the noise of these occupations may stifle the stings of remorse.

--St. Alphonsus Liguori, The True Spouse of Christ

QUOTATION: Holiness

Look at Saint Jerome, after twenty years passed in the sacred grotto of Bethlehem, transported again in imagination to the dances of Rome! It is not solitude that makes saints, but the will. The devil haunts hermitages, as well as great cities.

--St. Peter Julian Eymard