Quotations about Solitude

Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle. ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg


I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. ~Henry David Thoreau, "Solitude," Walden, 1854


Language... has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone. ~Paul Johannes Tillich, The Eternal Now


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


I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ~Henry David Thoreau, 1854


When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin


In a soulmate we find not company but a completed solitude. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


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


We live in a very tense society. We are pulled apart... and we all need to learn how to pull ourselves together.... I think that at least part of the answer lies in solitude. ~Helen Hayes


It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts. ~K.T. Jong


Never be afraid to sit awhile and think. ~Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun


By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear. ~George Herbert


Only in quiet waters do thing mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world. ~Hans Margolius


Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are. ~Robert Cecil


The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit. ~Marya Mannes


In solitude, where we are least alone. ~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage


Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that's where I renew my springs that never dry up. ~Pearl Buck


What a commentary on civilization, when being alone is being suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it - like a secret vice. ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh


A large, still book is a piece of quietness, succulent and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with "a sort of greedy enjoyment," as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was "saturated with the bouquet of silence." ~Holbrook Jackson


With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves. ~Eric Hoffer


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


No matter how reclusive we tend to be, we picture the after-life as a community of souls. It is one thing to seek privacy in this life; it is another to face eternity alone. ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com


I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. ~Henry David Thoreau


I am alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every hour holy...
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours (Das Stunden-Buch), translated from German


Solitude never hurt anyone. Emily Dickinson lived alone, and she wrote some of the most beautiful poetry the world has ever known... then went crazy as a loon. ~Matt Groening, The Simpsons, spoken by the character Lisa Simpson


The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude. ~Voltaire


True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. ~William Penn


Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you. ~Harold Bloom


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


We visit others as a matter of social obligation. How long has it been since we have visited with ourselves? ~Morris Adler


Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude. ~Paul Tillich


Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir


Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul. ~Marcus Aurelius


It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky... a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe. ~Victor Hugo


There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. ~Ruth Stout


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, www.robertbrault.com


I owe my solitude to other people. ~Alan Watts


I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion. ~Henry David Thoreau