Winter Solitude Quotes & Sayings

The quiet transition from autumn to winter is not a bad time at all. It's a time for protecting and securing things and for making sure you've got in as many supplies as you can. It's nice to gather together everything you possess as close to you as possible, to store up your warmth and your thoughts and burrow yourself into a deep hole inside, a core of safety where you can defend what is important and precious and your very own. Then the cold and the storms and the darkness can do their worst. They can grope their way up the walls looking for a way in, but they won't find one, everything is shut, and you sit inside, laughing in your warmth and your solitude, for you have had foresight. — Tove Jansson

Ev'n wit's a burthen, when it talks too long. — John Dryden

There is a wilder solitude in winter When every sense is pricked alive and keen. — May Sarton

She had dreamed some brilliant dreams during the past winter and now they lay in the dust around her. In her present mood of self-disgust, she could not immediately begin dreaming again. And she discovered that, while solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms. — L.M. Montgomery

Hello, Grace's parents. I'm Grace's boyfriend. Please notice the chaste distance between us. I am very responsible and have never had my tongue in your daughter's mouth. — Maggie Stiefvater

Success never goes on sale, but most spend their whole life dickering over the cost, never making the purchase. — Orrin Woodward

Here, on a human face, appeared all the ruin following upon hopeless labour. Laveuve's unkempt beard straggled over his features, suggesting an old horse that is no longer cropped; his toothless jaws were quite askew, his eyes were vitreous, and his nose seemed to plunge into his mouth. But above all else one noticed his resemblance to some beast of burden, deformed by hard toil, lamed, worn to death, and now only good for the knackers. — Emile Zola

He rose and walked to the windows. The moon reflected the pristine whiteness blowing into shadowy silvery mounds beneath the stars. It spread out before him, all pure and flowing and sterling. There'd always been a gentle peace and welcome solitude on a wintry night in this house. A place of memories and innocent times; a place for new plans. — Dee Holmes

Wars, for us, are either inevitable, or created. Whatever they are, they should not wholly vitiate art. What art needs is greater men, and what politics needs is better men.
(Something About a Soldier (1940)) — William, Saroyan

We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest. — Philip Gilbert Hamerton

I often sit over against myself, as before a stranger, and wonder how the unnameable active principle that calls itself to life has adapted itself even to this form. All other expressions lie in a winter sleep, life is simply one continual watch against the menace of death; - it has transformed us into unthinking animals in order to give us the weapon of instinct - it has reinforced us with dullness, so that we do not go to pieces before the horror, which would overwhelm us if we had clear, conscious thought - it has awakened in us the sense of comradeship, so that we escape the abyss of solitude - it has lent us the indifference of wild creatures, so that in spite of all, we perceive the positive in every moment, and store it up as a reserve against the onslaught of nothingness. Thus we live a closed, hard existence of the utmost superficiality, and rarely does an incident strike out a spark. But then unexpectedly a flame of grievous and terrible yearning flares up. Those — Erich Maria Remarque

Love enters the heart unawares: takes precedence of all the emotions
or, at least, will be second to none
and even reflection becomes its accomplice. While it lives, it renders blind; and when it has struck its roots deep only itself can shake them. It reminds one of hospitality as practiced among the ancients. The stranger was received upon the threshold of the half-open door, and introduced into the sanctuary reserved for the Penates. Not until every attention had been lavished upon him did the host ask his name; and the question was sometimes deferred till the very moment of departure. — Sophie Swetchine

This winter, there will be no voices, no glimpses, no arms.
only the fabric of poetry, to keep me warm. — Sanober Khan

The Four Noble Truths are pragmatic rather than dogmatic. They suggest a course of action to be followed rather than a set of dogmas to be believed. The four truths are prescriptions for behavior rather than descriptions of reality. The Buddha compares himself to a doctor who offers a course of therapeutic treatment to heal one's ills. To embark on such a therapy is not designed to bring one any closer to 'the Truth' but to enable one's life to flourish here and now, hopefully leaving a legacy that will continue to have beneficial repercussions after one's death. (154) — Stephen Batchelor

There is a remarkable picture called 'Contemplation.' It shows a forest in winter and on a roadway through the forest, in absolute solitude, stands a peasant in a torn kaftan and bark shoes. he stands, as it were, lost in thought. Yet he is not thinking: he is "contemplating." If anyone touched him he would start and look bewildered. It's true he would come to himself immediately; but if he were asked what he had been thinking about, he would remember nothing. Yet probably he has hidden within himself, the impression which dominated him during that period of contemplation. Those impressions are dear to him and he probably hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know. He may suddenly, after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage. Or he may suddenly set fire to his native village. Or he may do both. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

XVIII. THE LOCHINVAR METHOD XIX. ON THE LAKE XX. A LESSON IN PICQUET — P.G. Wodehouse

I don't blame the players today for the money. I blame the owners. They started it. They wanna give it to 'em? More power to 'em. — Yogi Berra

Winter solitude- in a world of one colour the sound of the wind. — Matsuo Basho

Freedom is of more account than the height of a roof beam. I ought to know; mine cost me eighteen years' slavery. The man who lives on his own land is an independent man. He is his own master. If I can keep my sheep alive through winter and can pay what has been stipulated from year to year - then I pay what has been stipulated; and I have kept my sheep alive. No, it is freedom that we are all after, Titla. He who pays his way is a king. He who keeps his sheep alive through the winter lives in a palace. — Halldor Laxness

It was a long winter of deep snow, solitude, and madness. The satellite kept feeding me digital news of summer in other places. I had to come down from the White Mountain, down into the valley where flowers bloomed, where trees grew new leaves, and hot pants were on! — Robert Earl Wildwood

You let him go alone? (Kat)
Well, given the fact that it was in this time zone and there's a little thing outside called the sun ... yeah. Burnt-up Daimon wouldn't be helpful to nobody, least of all me and my tailor. (Damien) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The leaves hop, scraping on the ground. It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice. It is in this solitude, a syllable, Out of these gawky flitterings, Intones its single emptiness, The savagest hollow of winter-sound. — Wallace Stevens

The art of publicity is a black art; but it has come to stay, and every year adds to its potency. — Learned Hand

Along the Chilean coast, with cold and winter,
when rain falls washing the weeks.
Listen: solitude becomes music once more,
and it seems its appearance is that of air, of rain,
that time, something with wave and wings, passes by,
grows. And the harp awakes from oblivion. — Pablo Neruda

The solitude lends much appeal, because a sea without a harbour surrounds it. Even a modest boat can find few anchorage, and nobody can go ashore unnoticed by the guards. Its winter is mild because it is enclosed by a range of mountains which keeps out the fierce temperature; its summer is unequal. The open sea is very pleasant and it has a view of a beautiful bay. — Tacitus

Will someone please explain to me the logic that says we can trust someone with a Boeing 747 in bad weather but not with a Glock 9 millimeter? — Zell Miller

I require silence to write the way an apple tree requires winter to make fruit. Being with people is intimate and joyous, but at some point, I'll wander off by myself. The paradox is that what began in childhood as an act of necessary solitude has led me straight to a life with others, in which I fly to China or Lithuania or northern Minnesota to read my poems and talk with other people who love language made into a lathe on which a life can be tuned and be turned. — Jane Hirshfield

Everything is in flux. — Heraclitus

We are animal in our blood and in our skin. We were not born for pavements and escalators but for thunder and mud. — Jay Griffiths