Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself.
—Thomas Browne (1605–82) English Author, Physician
Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.
—May Sarton (1912–95) American Children’s Books Writer, Poet, Novelist
How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! but grant me still a friend in my retreat, whom I may whisper, solitude is sweet.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer
The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.
—Mother Teresa (1910–97) Roman Catholic Missionary, Nun
Solitude is the human condition in which I keep myself company. Loneliness comes about when I am alone without being able to split up into the two-in-one, without being able to keep myself company.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
Those beings only are fit for solitude, who like nobody, and are liked by nobody.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann (1728–1795) Swiss Philosophical Writer, Naturalist, Physician
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
A solitude is the audience-chamber of God.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
It is better to travel alone than with a bad companion.
—African Proverb
Amid the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, to hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, and roam along, the world’s tired denizen, with none to bless us, none whom we can bless; this is to be alone; this, this is solitude.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
No matter how close to yours another’s steps have grown, in the end there is one dance you’ll do alone.
—H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (b.1940) American Self-Help 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
Concerning the factors of silence, solitude and darkness, we can only say that they are actually elements in the production of the infantile anxiety from which the majority of human beings have never become quite free.
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian Psychiatrist, Psychoanalytic
Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society’s hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–72) American Jewish Rabbi
To have a quiet mind is to possess one’s mind wholly; to have a calm spirit is to possess one’s self.
—Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846–1916) American Essayist, Editor
I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
He broke fresh ground-because, and only because, he had the courage to go ahead without asking whether others were following or even understood. He had no need for the divided responsibility in which others seek to be safe from ridicule, because he had been granted a faith which required no confirmation-a contact with reality, light and intense like the touch of a loved hand: a union in self-surrender without self- destruction, where his heart was lucid and his mind was loving.
—Dag Hammarskjold (1905–61) Swedish Statesman, UN Diplomat
Well has he lived who has lived well in obscurity.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.
—Orson Welles (1915–85) American Film Director, Actor
We are all prone to the malady of the introvert who, with the manifold spectacle of the world spread out before him, turns away and gazes only upon the emptiness within. But let us not imagine there is anything grand about the introvert’s unhappiness.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
O Solitude! If I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap of murky buildings
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
Man staggers through life yapped at by his reason, pulled and shoved by his appetites, whispered to by fears, beckoned by hopes. Small wonder that what he craves most is self-forgetting.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.
—Octavio Paz (1914–98) Mexican Poet, Diplomat
It isn’t the oceans which cut us off from the world—it’s the American way of looking at things.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
It would do the world good if every man in it would compel himself occasionally to be absolutely alone. Most of the world’s progress has come out of such loneliness.
—Bruce Fairchild Barton (1886–1967) American Author, Advertising Executive, Politician
It is God who lets the wild apples grow, to satisfy the hungry. He showed her a wild apple-tree, with the boughs bending under the weight of the fruit. Here she took her midday meal, placing props under the boughs, and then went into the darkest part of the forest. There it was so still that she could hear her own footsteps, as well as the rustling of every dry leaf which bent under her feet. Not one bird was to be seen, not one ray of sunlight could find its way through the great dark boughs of the trees; the lofty trunks stood so close together that when she looked before her it appeared as though she were surrounded by sets of palings one behind the other. O, here was solitude such as she had never before known!
—Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75) Danish Author, Poet, Short Story Writer
There is a solitude which each and every one of us has always carried within. More inaccessible than the ice cold mountains, more profound than the midnight sea: the solitude of self.
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) American Social Reformer
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.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
The strong man is strongest when alone.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
The worst vice of the solitary is the worship of his food.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.
—Baltasar Gracian (1601–58) Spanish Scholar, Prose Writer
Leisure and solitude are the best effect of riches, because mother of thought. Both are avoided by most rich men, who seek company and business; which are signs of their being weary of themselves.
—William Temple (1881–1944) British Clergyman, Theologian
When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death—ourselves.
—Eda LeShan (1922–2002) American TV Personality, Playwright, Educator, Writer
What a commentary on our civilization when being alone is considered suspect, when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it-like a secret vice!
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American Aviator, Author
There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
Solitude shows us what we should be; society shows us what we are.
—Richard Cecil
He is his own best friend, and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Oh, for the simple life,/For tents and starry skies!
—Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) English Playwright, Novelist, Zionist Activist
Privacy is the right to be alone—the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized man.
—Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Jurist
Solitude is the playfield of Satan.
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-born American Novelist
We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
Solitude is a kind of freedom.
—Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian Novelist
Wholesome solitude, the nurse of sense!
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English 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) American Lutheran Theologian, Philosopher
Solitude begets whimsies.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone; all leave it alone.
—Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) English Essayist, Critic
It is not physical solitude that actually separates one from others; not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation. It is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. It is the wilderness in the The Mind desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. How often in a large city, shaking hands with my friends, I have felt the wilderness stretching between us. Both of us were wandering in arid wastes, having lost the springs that nourished us—or having found them dry. Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American Aviator, Author
To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations—such is a pleasure beyond compare.
—Yoshida Kenko (1283–1352) Japanese Poet, Essayist
All humans are frightened of their own solitude. But only in solitude can we learn to know ourselves, learn to handle our own eternal aloneness.
—Han Suyin (b.1917) Chinese-born Eurasian Novelist, Writer, Physician
Solitude, seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave; a sepulchre in which the living lie, where all good qualities grow sick and die.
—William Cowper (1731–1800) English Anglican Poet, Hymn writer