The hours which I have spent alone with Mr. Edison have brought me the real big returns of my life: to it I attribute all I have accomplished.THOMAS EDISON, AMERICAN INVENTOR
The most valuable thing we can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room, not try to be or do anything whatever.MAY SARTON, AMERICAN POET, NOVELIST, ESSAYIST
I am independent! I can live alone and I love to work. Sometimes it made him [Degas] furious that he could not find a chink in my armor, and there would be months when we just could not see each other, and then something I painted would bring us together again.MARY CASSATT, FRENCH IMPRESSIONIST
Talent is nurtured in solitude; character is formed on the stormy billows of the world.GOETHE, GERMAN NOVELIST
Obviously, if we are to experience insights from our consciousness, we need to be able to give ourselves to solitude.ROLLO MAY, AMERICAN EXISTENTIALIST PSYCHOLOGIST
Creative endeavor requires physical and mental space; without privacy, solitude, and time it suffocates. It is not easy to be independent in a crowd and it is impossible to pursue original thought in the scattered remnants of a day or of a lifetime. . . . Finally, the creative life requires an environment which is free, open, and never so logical and efficient that it cannot be unpredictable.JUDITH GROCH, AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER
*Degas, Portrait of Miss Cassatt, Seated, Holding Cards
*Goethe in 1819 - from the painting by Georg Dawe at the Goethe Museum at Weimar
*Photo of single flower substituted for unobtainable image of Judith Groch, who hides well.
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