“Crowded places, I shunned them as noises too rudeAnd fled to the silence of sweet solitude.”

“the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.”

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“But the solitude in Ohio is different from that of most other places. There is a certain silence to it, a certain loneliness.”

“In solitude, you accumulate energy to spend in crowds; and in crowds, you accumulate energy to spend in solitude!”