“Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other. ”

“I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.”

“That’s love: Two lonely persons keep each other safe and touch each other and talk to each other.”

“All companionship can consist in only the strengthening of neighboring solitudes, giving oneself is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to become closer to each other, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling – I have learned over and over again, there is scarcely anything more difficult than to love one another.”

“A good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude.”

“The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain.”

“What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours—that is what you must be able to attain.”