“I hate who steals my solitude, without really offer me in exchange company.”

“My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.”

“Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before.”

“I go into solitude so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think. After a time it always seems as if they want to banish my self from myself and rob me of my soul.”

“A small company is more welcome to me than a bad one: but they must come and go at the right time. So does it accord with good sleep.”

“Your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison to you.”

“In solitude the solitary man consumes himself, in the crowd the crowd consumes him.”