Solitude Quotes

Solitude, being alone with one’s self, can be time for reflection and recharge, or it can be a time of loneliness. See what some writers and others have said about Solitude.

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

[M]y consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.

Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging.

BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

Our uniqueness makes us special, makes perception valuable – but it can also make us lonely. This loneliness is different from being ‘alone’: You can be lonely even surrounded by people. The feeling I’m talking about stems from the sense that we can never fully share the truth of who we are. I experienced this acutely at an early age.

Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terrors, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.

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 not inner music to take its place.

Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away.

Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.

Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.

Loneliness does not come from having no people around you, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.

The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.

Friendship needs no words – it is solitude delivered from the anguish of loneliness.

Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.

What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one to share my burden, but this: I have only my own burden to bear.

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.

A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.

Leadership through self-differentiation is not easy; learning techniques and imbibing data are far easier. Nor is striving or achieving success as a leader without pain: there is the pain of isolation, the pain of loneliness, the pain of personal attacks, the pain of losing friends. That’s what leadership is all about.

If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe…

The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend.

Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate.

Most women still need a room of their own and the only way to find it may be outside their own home.

When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.

When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.

We don’t need sugar, flour or rice or anything else. We just want to see our dear ones.

…love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?

If you’re lonely when you are alone, you’re in bad company.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

Solitude is essentially the discovery and acceptance of our uniqueness.

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.

Being afraid is one thing. Being alone and afraid is far worse. Find others who understand your fears and problems.

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.

The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Humans are the only beings who know they are alone.

Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one’s self. It is not about the absence of other people-it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people-it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone.

You only grow when you are alone.

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion . . . It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Respect the child. Wait and see the new product of Nature. Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions. Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.