July 27, 2026

Alone With Yourself

Whosoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god.

Bacon opens his essay Of Friendship with this borrowed line from Aristotle, using it to weigh the true nature of a person who seeks solitude. He wrote this while serving at the highest levels of the English court, a world of constant company, favor-seeking, and noise, where withdrawal from others was often viewed with suspicion. Bacon argues that solitude taken for the wrong reasons shrinks a person, but solitude taken to think clearly and know oneself can be the mark of something higher. It is a fitting thought for the quiet hour before the day's demands arrive, when solitude is still a choice rather than an absence.