In the tumult of men and events solitude was my temptation now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?

Nothing is more capable of troubling our reason and consuming our health than secret notions of jealousy in solitude.

Great men are like eagles and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

God is absence. God is the solitude of man.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather it is a deepening of the present and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it.

I had three chairs in my house one for solitude two for friendship three for society.

Friendship needs no words - it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.

There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom others when it is a bitter tonic and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.

In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order.