“Yet the fact remains that solitude, once understood and arranged for, must be obstinately defended.”
Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987) page 99.
“Therefore, be slow to speak and slow to go to those places where people speak, because in many words the spirit is poured out like water; by your amiability to all, purchase the right to frequent only a few whose society is profitable; avoid, even with these, the excessive familiarity which drags one down and away from one’s purpose; do not run after news that occupies the mind to no purpose; do not busy yourself with the sayings and doings of the world, that is with such as have no moral or intellectual bearing; avoid useless comings and goings which waste hours and fill the mind with wandering thoughts. These are the conditions of that sacred thing, quiet recollection.”
Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987) page 47
“I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from the rest of mankind as if I were a different kind of being.
“Some men have perhaps become hermits with the thought that sanctity involved some kind of escape from other men. But the only justification for a life of deliberate solitude is the conviction that it will help you to love not only God but also other men. Otherwise, if you go into the desert merely to get away from crowds of people you dislike, you will not find peace or solitude either; you will only isolate yourself with a tribe of devils.
“Go into the desert not to escape other men but in order to find them in God.”
Merton, Thomas. Seeds of Contemplation. (NY: Dell, 1949) pages 35-36
“There is no true solitude except interior solitude. And interior solitude is not possible for anyone who does not accept his true place in relation to other men. There is no true peace possible for the man who still imagines that some accident of talent or grace or virtue segregates him from other men and places him above them.
“God does not give us graces of talents or virtues for ourselves alone. We are members one of another and everything that is given to one member is given for the whole body.”
Merton, Thomas. Seeds of Contemplation. (NY: Dell, 1949), page 36
“Solitude and prayer-time alone were important to Jesus. Why is it, I wonder, that we seem more ready to follow Jesus into service than into solitude? Especially before important decisions were to be made, the Bible shows that Jesus took time to be alone with his Father and to reflect before deciding to move to another locale for ministry, before choosing the disciples, before embracing the cross.” (p. 96)
Sager, Allan H. Gospel Centered Spirituality: An Introduction to our Spiritual Journey. (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990) page 96
“The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech.”
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954. (original German pub in 1939), page 78.
“Christ lived for thirty years in silence. Then, during his public life, he withdrew to the desert to listen to and speak with his Father. The world vitally needs those who go off into the desert. Because God speaks in silence.”
Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 42
“The desire to see God is what urges us to love solitude and silence. For silence is where God dwells. He drapes himself in silence.”
Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 30
“In his Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte, John Paul II writes: ‘It is important however that what we propose, with the help of God, should be profoundly rooted in contemplation and prayer. Ours is a time for continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of “doing for the sake of doing”. We must resist the temptation by trying “to be” before trying “to do”.’ This is the innermost, unchangeable desire of a monk. But it happens also to be the deepest aspiration of every person who seeks the Eternal One. For man can encounter God in truth only in silence and solitude, both interior and exterior.” Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 28
“Solitude is the best state in which to hear God’s silence. For someone who wants to find silence, solitude is the mountain that he must climb.” Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 23
Pathology: the Study of a Path 