I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full; I have to surrender myself to what encircles me, I have to merge with my clouds and rocks in order to be what I am. Solitude is indispensible for my dialogue with nature.

Solitude has become my companion.

I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him.

It is when one is alone that one begins to observe Nature and to love her.

Seek to be alone much to commune with Nature and be thus inspired by her mighty whisperings within your consciousness. Nature is a most jealous god, for she will not whisper her inspiring revelations to you unless you are absolutely alone with her. (p. 9)

I was a romantic and sentimental creature, with a tendency towards solitude.

I have not a desire but a need for solitude.

I shunned the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; solitude was my only consolation — deep, dark, death-like solitude.

For me it was important to be alone; solitude was a prerequisite to being openly and joyfully susceptible and responsive to the world of leaves, light, birdsong, flowers, flowing water.

My love for imaginary objects and my facility in lending myself to them ended by disillusioning me with everything around me, and determined that love of solitude which I have retained ever since that time.

The trees are alone, the clouds are alone. Everything is alone when I am alone.

Never does the soul feel so far from human life as when a man finds himself alone in the vistas of the moon, either in the streets of a sleeping city, the avenues of the woods, or by the border of the sea. Earth, swayed perhaps by her powerful satellite, withdraws her sympathy from him and he wanders in a white void, wondering if he was born to be thus annulled.

I long for solitude and yet I cannot stand it.

I need to be alone. I need to ponder my shame and my despair in seclusion; I need the sunshine and the paving stones of the streets without companions, without conversation, face to face with myself, with only the music of my heart for company.