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
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil.
—Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American Inventor, Scientist, Entrepreneur
You will not find a soulmate in the quiet of your room. You must go to a noisy place and look in the quiet corners.
—Robert Brault
To seek solitude like a wild animal. That is my only ambition.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader, Civil Rights Leader, Philosopher, Author
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
If you are afraid of being lonely, don’t try to be right.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
Solitude is bearable only with God
—Andre Gide (1869–1951) French Novelist
What would a man do if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never better himself in cool solitude?
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–64) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
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
He never is alone that is accompanied with noble thoughts.
—John Fletcher
Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living.
—Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) Swiss Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Philosopher
If you are afraid of loneliness, don’t marry.
—Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian Short-Story Writer
To fly from, need not be to hate, makind:
All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
Deep in its fountain.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
—Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American Novelist, Poet
It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which are at once more intense and less articulate than those of a gregarious man.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Social Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist
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.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Solitude is the despair of fools, the torment of the wicked, and the joy of the good.
—Unknown
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
Solitude is un-American.
—Erica Jong (b.1942) American Novelist, Feminist
O sacred solitude! divine retreat! choice of the prudent! envy of the great! by thy pure stream, or in thy waving shade, we count fair wisdom.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
National isolation breeds national neurosis.
—Hubert Humphrey (1911–78) American Head of State, Politician
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
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
We’re all of us sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life!
—Tennessee Williams (1911–83) American Playwright
The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio, or looked at a TV. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would mark.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
To be sure, this requires effort and love, a careful cultivation of the spiritual life, and a watchful, honest, active oversight of all one’s mental attitudes towards things and people. It is not to be learned by world-flight, running away from things, turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, one must learn an inner solitude, where or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.
—Meister Eckhart (c.1260–1327) German Christian Mystic
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
Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous- to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German Novelist, Short Story Writer, Social Critic, Philanthropist, Essayist