Meaning of “I have found both freedom and safety in…”

Essays of Montaigne, Book I, Chapter XXXVIII, ‘Of Solitude,’ Charles Cotton translation edited by William Carew Hazlitt (1877); Project Gutenberg Volume 06 #3586 / Complete Essays #3600. Montaigne’s self-possession sentence occurs in his discussion of inward independence and making a retreat that does not leave the self owned by external obligations.

The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 275; Thomas Common translation.

My Bondage and My Freedom, immediately after Douglass describes his resistance to Covey; capitalization follows the represented Project Gutenberg text.

Leaves of Grass (1860), poem “Walt Whitman’s Caution,” represented on Wikisource from the 1860 edition.

“The Story of an Hour,” first published in 1894 and represented by Wikisource. The words belong to Louise Mallard’s private reaction after she is told her husband has died; the story’s irony and ending are essential context.

Heart of Darkness, Part I, Project Gutenberg #219. Marlow says ‘We live, as we dream—alone’ while explaining to his listeners that the lived ‘life-sensation’ of an earlier period cannot be fully conveyed to another person. The line remains fictional narration inside Conrad's colonial-era novella rather than a clinical or universal psychological finding about loneliness.