Solitary Quotes

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  You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

  Franz Kafka

  Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

  "The Zürau Aphorisms". Book by Franz Kafka, 1931.

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• Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.

  Bell Hooks

  Love, Life, Meaningful

  "Time Spent in a Psych Ward" by Erin Nugent, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 10, 2015.

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• Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

  Winston Churchill

  Sad, Being Strong, Lonely

  Winston Churchill (2012). “The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan”, p.21, Courier Corporation

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• I love all waste
  And solitary places; where we taste
  The pleasure of believing what we see
  Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Believe, Soul, Wish

  'Julian and Maddalo' (1818) l. 14

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

  Marcus Aurelius

  Philosophical, Inspiration, Being Alone

  c. AD 170-180 Meditations, bk.4, no.3 (translated by M Staniforth).

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  If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Maya Angelou (1997). “The Heart of a Woman”, Bantam

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• A solitary being is by instinct a wanderer.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Travel, Instinct, Wanderers

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (2015). “The Last Man”, p.583, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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• 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 Tillich

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Lonely

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• If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

  Samuel Johnson

  Advice, Solitude, Sloth

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (letter to Boswell, 27 Oct. 1779)

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• You will be melancholy, if you are solitary.

  Ovid

  Melancholy, Ifs

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• Simply wait, be quiet, still The world will freely offer itself to you.

  Franz Kafka

  Suicide, Suicidal, Solitary Life

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• The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

  Thomas Wolfe

  Loneliness, Solitary Life, Facts

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• Life is for each man a solitary cell whose walls are mirrors.

  Eugene O'Neill

  Life, Wall, Mirrors

  "Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O'Neill".

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• Let the moon shine on the in thy solitary walk; and let the misty mountain-winds be free to blow against thee.

  William Wordsworth

  Nature, Blow, Moon

  William Wordsworth (1854). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth”, p.194

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• We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.

  Jim Morrison

  Pain, Fear, Scary

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• Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Life, Sad, Depressing

  Tales of aWayside Inn pt. 3 "The Theologian's Tale: Elizabeth" pt. 4 (1874)

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• The whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual - for it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.

  M. Scott Peck

  Change, Integrity, Heart

  M. Scott Peck (2015). “The People Of The Lie”, p.290, Random House

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• It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Being Alone, Solitude, Reason

  "Letters to a Young Poet". Book by Rainer Maria Rilke. Letter Seven (May 14, 1904), 1929.

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• The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

  Tom Wolfe

  Life, Loneliness, Being Alone

  "The American Mercury", p. 467, "The Anatomy of Loneliness", October 1941.

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• We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.

  Tennessee Williams

  Lonely, Loneliness, Being Alone

  Orpheus Descending act 2, sc. 1 (1958)

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• The crowd is the gathering place of the weakest; true creation is a solitary act.

  Charles Bukowski

  Gathering, Crowds, Creation

  Charles Bukowski (2003). “Sunlight Here I Am: Interviews and Encounters, 1963-1993”

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• I am lost without you. I am soulless, a drifter without a home, a solitary bird in a flight to nowhere. I am all these things, and I am nothing at all. This, my darling, is my life without you. I long for you to show me how to live again.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Home, Long, Bird

  FaceBook post by Nicholas Sparks from Jun 07, 2012

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• 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

  Single, Self Esteem, Loneliness

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• Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Strength, Being Strong, Loneliness

  Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.33

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• It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.

  Jodie Foster

  War, Being Alone, Interesting

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