Only when one is connected to one's own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude. Anne Morrow Lindbergh More Quotes by Anne Morrow Lindbergh More Quotes From Anne Morrow Lindbergh The artist knows he must be alone to create; the writer, to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray. But women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves. Anne Morrow Lindbergh artist essence order We Americans, with our terrific emphasis on youth, action, and material success, certainly tend to belittle the afternoon of life and even to pretend it never comes. We push the clock back and try to prolong the morning, over-reaching and over-straining ourselves in the unnatural effort. ... In our breathless attempts we often miss the flowering that waits for afternoon. Anne Morrow Lindbergh missing waiting morning The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now. Anne Morrow Lindbergh real relationship life I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before. Anne Morrow Lindbergh void vivid quality The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. I have shed my mask. Anne Morrow Lindbergh wearing-a-mask social life God often used bitter experiences to make us better. Gold can be a helpful servant, but a cruel master. Anne Morrow Lindbergh bitter helpful gold # "I saw the most beautiful cat today. It was sitting by the side of the road, its two front feet neatly and graciously together. Then it gravely swished around its tail to completely encircle itself. It was so fit and beautifully neat, that gesture, and so self-satisfied, so complacent. Anne Morrow Lindbergh cat self beautiful When you love someone you do not love them, all the time, in the exact same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. Anne Morrow Lindbergh ebb-and-flow when-you-love-someone lying Perhaps middle-age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego. Anne Morrow Lindbergh ego ambition birthday Great problems that face the world today in both the private and the public sphere cannot be solved by women – or by men – alone. They can only be surmounted by men and women side by side. Anne Morrow Lindbergh today men world there is no sin punished more implacably by nature than the sin of resistance to change. Anne Morrow Lindbergh resistance sin change We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends, and movies should fail, there is still the radio or televsion to fill up the void... We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side... Now instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone. Anne Morrow Lindbergh being-alone hero dream The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. Anne Morrow Lindbergh being-yourself just-being life the final lesson of learning to be independent - widowhood ... is the hardest lesson of all. Anne Morrow Lindbergh widowhood finals independent My father taught me that a bill is like a crying baby and has to be attended to at once. Anne Morrow Lindbergh bills baby father I believe that true identity is found . . . in creative activity springing from within. It is found, paradoxically, when one loses oneself. Woman can best refind herself in some kind of creative activity of her own. Anne Morrow Lindbergh true-identity creative believe Woman must come of age by herself. This is the essence of 'coming of age'-to learn how to stand alone. She must learn not to depend on another, nor to feel she must prove her strength by competing with another. In the past, she has swung between these two opposite poles of dependence and competition, of Victorianism and Feminism. Both extremes throw her off balance; neither is the center, the true center of being a whole woman. She must find her true center alone. She must become whole. Anne Morrow Lindbergh essence opposites past The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself. Anne Morrow Lindbergh marriage woven space Nothing feeds the center of being so much as creative work. The curtain of mechanization has come down between the mind and the hand. Anne Morrow Lindbergh creative mind hands Marriage should, I think, always be a little bit hard and new and strange. It should be breaking your shell and going into another world, and a bigger one. Anne Morrow Lindbergh shells world thinking
