Solitary Quotes - Page 9

• The famous soft watches are nothing else than the tender, extravagant, solitary, paranoic-critical camembert oftime and space.

  Salvador Dali

  Time, Space, Watches

  1969 Conquest of the Irrational.

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• That I am totally devoid of sympathy for, or interest in, the world of groups is directly attributable to the fact that my two greatest needs and desires - smoking cigarettes and plotting revenge - are basically solitary pursuits.

  Fran Lebowitz

  Revenge, Being Alone, Two

  Fran Lebowitz (2011). “The Fran Lebowitz Reader”, p.77, Vintage

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• The most dramatic conflicts are perhaps, those that take place not between men but between a man and himself - where the arena of conflict is a solitary mind.

  Clark Moustakas

  Men, Mind, Arena

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• I am not prepared to deny or assert any proposition which concerns myself; but certainly this solitary struggle with platitudinous atoms, called men and women by courtesy, leads me to wish for my wife again. How did I ever hit on the only woman in the world who fits my cravings and never sounds hollow anywhere? Social chemistry-the mutual attraction of equivalent human molecules-is a science yet to be created, for the fact is my daily study and only satisfaction in life.

  Henry Adams

  Struggle, Men, Satisfaction In Life

  Henry Adams (1982). “The Letters of Henry Adams, Volumes 1-3: 1858-1892”, p.28, Harvard University Press

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• A cigar numbs sorrow and fills the solitary hours with a million gracious images.

  George Sand

  Sorrow, Cigar, Hours

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• Without the book business it would be difficult or impossible for true books to find their true readers and without that solitary (and potentially subversive) alone with a book the whole razzmatazz of prizes, banquets, television spectaculars, bestseller lists, even literature courses, editors and authors, are all worthless. Unless a book finds lovers among those solitary readers, it will not live . . . or live for long.

  John McGahern

  Book, Editors, Long

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• To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility; it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh vast gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the living banished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God?

  Thomas Carlyle

  Life, Devil, Rolling

  Thomas Carlyle (2009). “Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.230, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Perhaps it was Maggie, perhaps not. In solitary moments magpies will perch on a branch and mutter soft soliloquies of whines and squeals and chatterings, oblivious to what goes on around them. It is one of those things, I suppose, intelligence now and then does, must in fact now and then do, must think, must play, must imagine, must talk to itself. ... What, finally, intelligence could be for: finding your way back.

  Stanley Crawford

  Thinking, Play, Bird

  Stanley Crawford (1992). “A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm”, p.86, UNM Press

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• A solitary laugh is often a laugh of superiority.

  Graham Greene

  Laughing, Superiority

  1982 Monsignor Quixote, pt.1, ch.9.

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• I write in praise of the solitary act: of not feeling a trespassing tongue forced into one's mouth, one's breath smothered, nipples crushed against the ribcage, and that metallic tingling in the chin set off by a certain odd nerve: unpleasure.

  Fleur Adcock

  Writing, Solitude, Feelings

  Fleur Adcock (2000). “Poems 1960-2000”, Bloodaxe Books Limited

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• Because I have become such a solitary, and not in the Aristotelian sense: not a beast, not a god. Rather, a loner troubled by longings, incapable of finding a suitable language and despairing at the impossibility of composing messages in a playable key--as if I no longer understood the codes used by the estimable people who wanted to hear from me and would have so much to reply if only the impediments were taken away.

  Saul Bellow

  Taken, Keys, People

  Saul Bellow (2010). “Saul Bellow: Letters”, p.422, Penguin

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• The greatest threat to mankind comes from the renunciation of individual scruple in favor of institutional denominators. . . . Real heroism lies, as it always will, not in conformity or even patriotism, but in acts of solitary moral courage. Which, come to think of it, is what we used to admire in our Christian savior

  John le Carre

  Christian, Real, Lying

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• A solitary maple on a woodside flames in single scarlet, recalls nothing so much as the daughter of a noble house dressed for a fancy ball, with the whole family gathered around to admire her before she goes.

  Henry James

  Daughter, Fall, Autumn

  Henry James (1993). “Collected Travel Writings: Great Britain and America”, p.370, Library of America

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• Again and again I am brought up against it, and again and again I resist it: I don't want to believe it, even though it is almost palpable: the vast majority lack an intellectual conscience; indeed, it often seems to me that to demand such a thing is to be in the most populous cities as solitary as in the desert.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Believe, Cities, Intellectual

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• The solitary ascent of the Dru had the immediate effect of expanding the horizons of my ideas about mountaineering. It made me aware of possibilities well in advance of the times, which were characterized by very restricted methods. This was how the superb pyramid of K2 surfaced once more in the list of my projects. But I chose K2 as a way for giving concrete form to my new concept of mountaineering: to climb the second highest mountain in the world solo, alpine style, and without oxygen.

  Walter Bonatti

  Oxygen, Ideas, Pyramids

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• Fortunate are the nations that can build wooden houses. Because wood breathes, transforms, deteriorates, like us. It is also important to have flowers and plants where we live, because they breathe, too. Contemplating a flower for three seconds can be a captivating solitary journey back to original geometry, which is always revitalizing.

  Henryk Skolimowski

  Flower, Journey, House

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• "The flowers have appeared in our land: the time of pruning is come: the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land." When the soul, like the solitary turtle-dove, retires and recollects itself in meditation to converse with God, then the flowers, that is, good desires, appear; then comes the time of pruning, that is, the correction of faults that are discovered in mental prayer.

  Alphonsus Liguori

  Prayer, Flower, Turtles

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• A flowerless room is a soulless room, to my way of thinking; but even a solitary little vase of a living flower may redeem it.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Flower, Thinking, May

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• I had a deprived childhood, you see. I had lots of other kids to play with and my parents bought me outdoor toys and refused to ill-treat me, so it never occurred to me to seek solitary consolation with a good book.

  Terry Pratchett

  Book, Kids, Play

  Terry Pratchett (2014). “A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-fiction”, p.68, Random House

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• A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Book, Eye, Men

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• The cat, which is a solitary beast, is single minded and goes its way alone, but, the dog, like his master, is confused in his mind.

  H. G. Wells

  Dog, Confused, Cat

  H. G. Wells (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of H. G. Wells”, p.7244, Delphi Classics

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• Silence comes in two varieties: One that nourishes and comforts; another that chokes, smothers, and isolates. Solitary confinement is the worst kind of imprisonment we can inflict on fellow humans, and if you are forced to keep silent about some dark secret, you live in solitary confinement. Without the bridge of communication connecting you to other human beings, you can’t share your burdens, can’t receive comfort, can’t confirm that you still belong. Silence is the abyss that separates you from hope.

  Martha Beck

  Communication, Dark, Bridges

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• If you're living completely on your own, break out of solitary confinement. Seek to understand others, and help them understand you

  Martha Beck

  Break Out, Helping, Confinement

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• Being a writer is a solitary life. So the little part of me that's an actor still enjoys the theatrical part of reading and doing the voices and telling the story.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Reading, Solitary Life, Voice

  Interview with Juliette Lewis, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 24, 2011.

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• "The Universe repeats itself, with the possible exception of history." Of all earthly studies history is the only one that does not repeat itself. ... Astronomy repeats itself; botany repeats itself; trigonometry repeats itself; mechanics repeats itself; compound long division repeats itself. Every sum if worked out in the same way at any time will bring out the same answer. ... A great many moderns say that history is a science; if so it occupies a solitary and splendid elevation among the sciences; it is the only science the conclusions of which are always wrong.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Science, Long, History

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