Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.
—Blaise Pascal, Pensées
Category: LONELINESS & SOLITUDE
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By directing its power toward destruction of this support on which the sinner’s selfishness has established itself and rests, divine, salvific grace carries out the following to awaken the sinner from his slumber: He who is enslaved by pleasing the flesh shall fall ill, and by weakening the flesh, shall give the spirit freedom and power to come to its senses and become sober. He who is preoccupied with his own attractiveness and strength shall be deprived of this attractiveness and kept in a state of utter exhaustion. He who finds refuge in his own power and strength shall be subject to slavery and humiliation. He who relies greatly on wealth shall have it taken from him. He who shows off great learnedness shall be put to shame. He who relies on solid personal connections shall have them cut off. He who counts on the permanence of the order established around him shall have it destroyed by the death of people he knows or the loss of essential material possessions. Is there any way to sober up those kept in the bonds of indifference through outward happiness other than by sorrows and grief? Isn’t our life filled with misfortunes so that it may assist with the divine intention of keeping us sober?
Each destruction of the supports of indifferent self-indulgence constitutes a turning point in life, which, because it is always unexpected, operates in an overwhelming and salvific manner. The sense that one’s life is in danger operates strongest of all in this respect. This sense weakens all bonds and kills selfishness at the very root; the person does not know where to run. The sense of total abandonment is of the same character and special circumstance. Both sense leave a person alone with himself. From himself, the most miserable of creatures, he immediately turns to God.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation -
“A lot of the people we admire the most are the loneliest, weirdest, strangest, most miserable people ever.”
—Sarah Peck -
Tis my sole plague to be alone,
I am a beast, a monster grown,
I will no light nor company,
I find it now my misery.
The scene is turn’d, my joys are gone,
Fear, discontent, and sorrows come.
All my griefs to this are jolly,
Naught so fierce as melancholy.
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Robert Burton -
Among writings once attributed to Aristotle, the question was first posed: ‘Why is it that all men who have become outstanding in philosophy, statesmanship, poetry or the arts are melancholic?’ For the Elizabethan gentleman of leisure, to be painted in the pose of the melancholy man – black clothing, a distracted gaze, perhaps reclining alone by a brook, or leaning against a tree – was the height of fashion. It was also a state he could afford to indulge, since melancholy was brought on by idleness and solitude.
My mistress Melancholy -
On the contrary, association with others in this situation allows for a more rapid healing than does solitude, insofar as it constitutes for the individual a test in which he directly confronts the difficulties which are the source of his sadness, and so is more easily and rapidly cured.
Mental Disorders & Spiritual Healing: Teachings from the Early Christian East
Jean-Claude Larchet -
In time I recognized this, that I was lonely, and that my loneliness was entirely self-inflicted, but by the time I did I couldn’t do anything about it. I felt weighed down by some kind of heavier gravity. I felt like a satellite that’d fallen out of orbit — slowly drifting away into darkness, further and further away from the place I used to be.
SO GOOD QUOTES 