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

  Franz Kafka

  Suicide, Suicidal, Solitary Life

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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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• 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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• You will be melancholy, if you are solitary.

  Ovid

  Melancholy, Ifs

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• I owe everything that I have done to the fact that I am very much at ease being alone.

  Marilynne Robinson

  Loneliness, Being Alone, Personality

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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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• The solitary Bee Whose buzzing was the only sound of life, Flew there on restless wing, Seeking in vain one blossom where to fix.

  Robert Southey

  Wings, Sound, Bees

  Robert Southey (1829). “The poetical works of Robert Southey: complete in one volume”, p.115

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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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• 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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• 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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• Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Inspirational, Strength, Success

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

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• Once more I realize that solitude is my element, and the reason is that extreme awareness of other people (all naturally solitary people must feel this) precludes awareness of one's self, so after a while the self no longer knows that it exists.

  May Sarton

  Self, People, Solitude

  May Sarton (2014). “At Seventy: A Journal”, p.135, Open Road Media

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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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• 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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• Solitude is nothing that one can choose or retrain from. We are solitary. We can delude ourselves about this and act as if it were not true. That is all.

  Rainer Maria Rilke

  Solitude, Ifs

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• Only solitary men know the full joys of frienship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.

  Willa Cather

  Friendship, Men, Joy

  Willa Cather (1938). “The novels and stories of Willa Cather ...”

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• So in the heart, When, fading slowly down the past, Fond memories depart, And each that leaves it seems the last; Long after all the rest are flown, Returns a solitary tone,— The after-echo of departed years,— And touches all the soul to tears.

  Henry Van Dyke

  Memories, Heart, Past

  Henry Van Dyke (1920). “The Poems of Henry Van Dyke”

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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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