The dread of loneliness is greater than the fear of bondage, so we get married.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
All alone! Whether you like it or not, alone is something you’ll be quite a lot.
—Theodor Seuss Geisel (‘Dr. Seuss’) (1904–91) American Children’s Books Writer, Writer, Cartoonist, Animator
Strife is better than loneliness.
—Irish Proverb
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Loneliness breaks the spirit.
—Yiddish Proverb
You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.
—Wayne Dyer (1940–2015) American Self-Help Author
Of my friends I am the only one left.
—Terence (c.195–159 BCE) Roman Comic Dramatist
Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One’s relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain.
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) Irish Novelist, Short-story Writer
Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.
—Oscar Levant (1906–72) American Musician, Composer, Author, Comedian, Actor
All men are lonely. But sometimes it seems to me that we Americans are the loneliest of all. Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us almost like a national disease. Our literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest, and our writers have been great wanderers.
—Carson McCullers (1917–67) American Novelist
At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self.
—Brendan Behan (1923–64) Irish Poet, Novelist, Playwright
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
Language has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone, and the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.
—Paul Tillich (1886–1965) German-American Theologian, Philosopher
Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.
—Dag Hammarskjold (1905–61) Swedish Statesman, UN Diplomat
Skillful listening is the best remedy for loneliness, loquaciousness, and laryngitis.
—William Arthur Ward (1921–94) American Author
I’m afraid sometimes you’ll play lonely games too, games you can’t win because you’ll play against you.
—Theodor Seuss Geisel (‘Dr. Seuss’) (1904–91) American Children’s Books Writer, Writer, Cartoonist, Animator
What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.
—Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one’s people that has not previously been taken into account.
—Alice Walker (b.1944) American Novelist, Activist
Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
It would be naive to think that the problems plaguing mankind today can be solved with means and methods which were applied or seemed to work in the past.
—Mikhail Gorbachev (1931–2022) Soviet Head of State
When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.
—Tennessee Williams (1911–83) American Playwright
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.
—Dag Hammarskjold (1905–61) Swedish Statesman, UN Diplomat
Better be alone than in bad company.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
A man is never completely alone in this world. At the worst, he has the company of a boy, a youth, and by and by a grown man—the one he used to be.
—Cesare Pavese (1908–50) Italian Novelist, Poet, Critic, Translator
All men’s misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
When thinking about companions gone, we feel ourselves doubly alone.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate.
—Germaine Greer (b.1939) Australia Academic, Journalist, Scholar, Writer
Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Man’s loneliness is but his fear of life.
—Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953) American Playwright
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