Manners are like zero in arithmetic. They may not be much in themselves, but they are capable of adding a great deal of value to everything else.
Freya StarkRead
Solitude, I reflected, is the one deep necessity of the human spirit to which adequate recognition is never given in our codes. It is looked upon as a discipline or penance, but hardly ever as the indispensable, pleasant ingredient it is to ordinary life, and from this want of recognition come half our domestic troubles.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Solitude is vital for the human spirit but is often misunderstood as punishment rather than a necessary part of life.
Freya Stark emphasizes the importance of solitude for personal growth and the well-being of the human spirit. She suggests that society tends to view solitude as a negative state, leading to a lack of appreciation for its benefits. This misunderstanding can contribute to various domestic issues, as individuals may not recognize the value of alone time in fostering a healthy balance in their lives.
Themes
SolitudeHuman SpiritRecognitionDomestic TroublesPersonal Growth
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote while discussing the importance of alone time in mental health workshops.
More from Freya Stark
All quotes →Perhaps the best function of parenthood is to teach the young creature to love with safety, so that it may be able to venture unafraid when later emotion comes; the thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. To disapprove, to condemn the human soul shrivels under barren righteousness.
Freya StarkRead
All the feeling which my father could not put into words was in his hand-any dog, child or horse would recognize the kindness of it.
Freya StarkRead
The unexpectedness of life, waiting round every corner, catches even wise women unawares (...) To avoid corners altogether is, after all, to refuse to live.
Freya StarkRead
The slightest living thing answers a deeper need than all the works of man because it is transitory. It has an evanescence of life, or growth, or change: it passes, as we do, from one stage to another, from darkness to darkness, into a distance where we, too, vanish out of sight. A work of art is static; and its value and its weakness lie in being so: but the tuft of grass and the clouds above it belong to our own traveling brotherhood.
Freya StarkRead
One can only really travel if one lets oneself go and takes what every place brings without trying to turn it into a healthy private pattern of one's own and I suppose that is the difference between travel and tourism.
Freya StarkRead
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