Quotes About Solitude

If she had not been alone, she would never have seen the panther or felt the hope it spread into the world like rings around the splash of a rock thrown into a still lake.

For when all things were made, none was made better than this: to be a lone man's companion, a sad man's cordial, a chilly man's fire. . . . There is no herb like it under the canopy of heaven.

What is reading, but silent conversation.

In solitude, struggles occur that no one else knows about. Inner battles are fought here that seldom become fodder for sermons or illustrations for books. God, who probes our deepest thoughts during protracted segments of solitude, opens our eyes to things that need attention. It is here He makes us aware of those things we try to hide from others.

All men are islands, surrounded by the bottomless oceans of unthinking night.

Noise and crowds have a way of siphoning our energy and distracting our attention, making prayer an added chore rather than a comforting relief

I thought about that long drive in the

All those nights looking up at the sky, wanting to be there, away from the grief of being here.

as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving - not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time. Now you are here, at 7:43. Now you are here, at 7:44. Now you are... Gone.

A hotel room all to myself is my idea of a good time.

Sleep is my friend and is the only place in this world where I don't get into fights with other people

Un coeur fier peut survivre à un échec général parce qu'un tel échec ne blesse pas son orgueil. C'est plus difficile et plus amer quand un homme échoue tout seul.

That's how it is sometimes when we plunge into the depths of our lives. No one can accompany us, not even those who would give up their hearts for our happiness.

She contemplated a mystery: How is it I am humiliated when I am alone? Does not humiliation demand an audience?

A day doesn't go by when I don't look at them, she said. I can't have them up on the kitchen refrigerator or in a frame in the bedroom--I just can't do it, I just can't run into them casually when I'm supposed to be doing something else--but I also can't last a day without seeing them. Visiting with them when I am alone in the house.

But if you are a person who needs no one's approval, you are probably crazy and live alone on an island or the top of a mountain somewhere.

And so Cristina submerged her ears beneath the water and the world grew a little quieter; her hair fanned out atop the plane and she ran her fingers through it and was reminded of a goddess in a Renaissance painting. Her mind wandered far from the villa and the ruins and her unshakable sense that her world was about to change.

Do you know people cry on airplanes more than anywhere else?" "I didn't know it was a fact," she answered, "but I might have suspected as much from my years up here." "Yeah, you'd probably know better than me. But on a plane, you're often alone. Or you're stressed. Or you've just had some meaningful experience. Movies and books will really get to you at thirty-five thousand feet.

Aristotle said that only two living entities are capable of complete solitude and complete separateness: God and beast. Because of this the most acute form of suffering for human beings is loneliness.

It is those possessed by sublime madness who keep alive another way of being. W. H. Auden captured the solitude and even futility of such a life at the end of his poem "September 1, 1939." Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.32 ———

We were alone. Where, I could not say, hardly imagine. All was black, and such a dense black that, after some minutes, my eyes had not been able to discern even the faintest glimmer.

I felt that I had been influenced by being in the city enough and I wanted to go off by myself to see what was going on. I remember going out there and looking in the mirror and thinking I wasn't anything.

When I was young, I was a huge Michael Jackson fan, but I would dance only in front of the mirror, alone in my room.

When you're miserable, you don't want anyone around you to be happy.