Retreat Quotes

By my intimacy with nature I find myself withdrawn from man. My interest in the sun and the moon, in the morning and the evening, compels me to solitude.

Get thee to a nunnery.

Wars are not won by evacuations.

He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.

And I leave my post of observation and find I have had enough of this outside life; I feel that there is nothing more that I can learn here, either now or at any time. And I long to say a last goodbye to everything up here, to go down into my burrow never to return again, let things take their course, and not try to retard them with my profitless vigils.

I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known.

The sorrowful spirit finds relaxation in solitude. It abhors people, as a wounded deer deserts the herd and lives in a cave until it is healed or dead.

My passion strengthens daily to quit political turmoil, and retire into the bosom of my family, the only scene of sincere and purehappiness.

One always abandons something in retreat. Look at Napoleon at the Beresina! He abandoned his whole army.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.

The home is a tryst-the place where we retire and shut the world out.

Man can find no better retreat from the world than art, and man can find no stronger link with the world than art.

The forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed.