Category: Philosophy & Ethics
Weak and delicate minds may, perhaps, be alarmed by the title of this work. The word _solitude_, may possibly engender melancholy ideas; but they have only to read a few pages to be undeceived. The author is not one of those extravagant misanthropists who expect that men, form...
The highest happiness which is capable of being enjoyed in this world, consists in _peace of mind_. The wise mortal who renounces the tumults of the world, restrains his desires...
4. CHAPTER II.The true value of liberty can only be conceived by minds that are free: slaves remain indolently contented in captivity. Men who have been long tossed upon the troubled ocean of...
15. CHAPTER VI.The passions lose in solitude a certain portion of that regulating weight by which in society they are guided and controlled; the counteracting effects produced by variety, the...
11. CHAPTER II.The motives which induce men to exchange the tumultuous joys of society, for the calm and temperate pleasures of solitude, are various and accidental; but whatever may be the fi...
6. CHAPTER IV.The doleful and monotonous sound of the clock of a sequestered monastery, the silence of nature in a still night, the pure air on the summit of a high mountain, the thick darkne...
14. CHAPTER V.A disposition to enjoy the silence of sequestered solitude, and a glowing distaste of the noisy tumults of public life, are the earliest and most general symptoms of approaching...
13. CHAPTER IV.The powers of imagination are great; and the effects produced by them, under certain circumstances, upon the minds of men of warm and sensible tempers, extraordinary and surpris...
17. CHAPTER VIII.The anxiety with which I have endeavored to describe the advantages and the disadvantages which, under particular circumstances, and in particular situations, are likely to be e...
12. CHAPTER III.The retirement which is not the result of cool and deliberate reason, so far from improving the feelings of the heart, or strengthening the powers of the mind, generally renders...
8. CHAPTER VI.The decline of life, and particularly the condition of old age, derive from solitude the purest sources of uninterrupted enjoyment. Old age when considered as a period of compar...
10. CHAPTER I.Solitude, in its strict and literal acceptation, is equally unfriendly to the happiness, and foreign to the nature of mankind. An inclination to exercise the faculty of speech,...
2. PART II.Weak and delicate minds may, perhaps, be alarmed by the title of this work. The word _solitude_, may possibly engender melancholy ideas; but they have only to read a few pages t...
16. CHAPTER VII.Idleness is truly said to be the root of all evil; and solitude certainly encourages in the generality of its votaries this baneful disposition. Nature has so framed the charact...
7. CHAPTER V.The advantages of solitude are not confined to rank, or fortune, or to circumstances. Fragrant breezes, magnificent forests, richly tinted meadows, and that endless variety of b...
3. CHAPTER I.Solitude is that intellectual state in which the mind voluntarily surrenders itself to its own reflections. The philosopher, therefore, who withdraws his attention from every ex...
18. ill. There will be neither consistency in the conduct, nor dignity in thecharacter, of one who sets apart no share of his time for meditation and reflection. “In the heat and bustle of life,” says an eloquent preacher, “while passion is every moment...
1. PART I.9. PART II.