Quotes About Solitude

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History?

Church is the only place where someone speaks to me and I do not have to answer back.

Above the sky, everything is beautiful, but alone. (Au-dessus du ciel, Tout est beau, mais seul)

People say they are alone. But at who do they say that ? (Les gens disent qu'ils sont seuls. Mais à qui le disent-ils ?)

We knit alone our life, before seeing by it our shroud. (Nous tricotons notre vie seule, Avant d'y voir notre linceul)

A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away--the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us--is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.

It is not easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something.

Keep yourself to yourself.

[S]he... paced the staircase-gallery outside, looked out of the window on the night, listened to the wind blowing and the rain falling, sat down and watched the faces in the fire, got up and watched the moon flying like a storm-driven ship through the sea of clouds.

in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker . . .

He had been for many years, a quiet silent man, associating but little with other men, and used to companionship with his own thoughts. He had never known before the strength of the want in his heart for the frequent recognition of a nod, a look, a word; or the immense amount of relief that had been poured into it by drops through such small means.

Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of lives, the life of solitude among a familiar crowd. The stranger in the land who looks into ten thousand faces for some answering look and never finds it, is in cheering society as compared with him who passes ten averted faces daily, that were once the countenances of friends

I went home, with new matters for my thoughts, though with no relief from the old.

growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.

For a long time, Oliver remained motionless in this attitude. The candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet. Having gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, he gently undid the fastenings of the door, and looked abroad.

My father had left a small collection of books in a little room upstairs, to which I had access (for it adjoined my own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. From that blessed little room, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Humphrey Clinker, Tom Jones, the Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and Robinson Crusoe, came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time . . .

There is nothing half so green that I know anywhere, as the grass of that churchyard; nothing half so shady as its trees; nothing half so quiet as its tombstones.

it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again.

Company, you see - company is - is - it's a very different thing from solitude - an't it?

Rooms get an awful look about them when they are fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, and that person is away under any shadow: let alone being God knows where.

In truth, the wind, though it was low, had a solemn sound, and crept around the deserted house with a whispered wailing that was very mournful. Everything was gone, down to the little mirror with the oyster-shell frame. I thought of myself, lying here, when that first great change was being wrought at home. I thought of the blue-eyed child who had enchanted me. I thought of Steerforth, and a foolish, fearful fancy came upon me of his being near at hand, and liable to be met at any turn.

Only one soul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defarge— who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.

towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with

But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep.