Solitude of Heart

Without the solitude of heart, the intimacy of friendship, marriage and community life cannot be creative. Without the solitude of heart, our relationships with others easily become needy and greedy, sticky and clinging, dependent and sentimental, exploitative and parasitic, because without the solitude of heart we cannot experience the others as different from ourselves but only as people who can be used for the fulfilment of our own, often hidden, needs.

- from 'Reaching Out' by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Soul Sowing

The soul attracts that which it secretly harbours; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the heights of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the levels of its unchastened desires, and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own.

- from As A Man Thinketh, James Allen