Solitude Quotes - Page 6

• Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.

  John Muir

  Beauty, Beautiful, Nature

  John Muir (2001). “The Yosemite”, p.177, Library of Alexandria

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• O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,-- Nature's observatory--whence the dell, In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep 'Mongst boughs pavilion'd, where the deer's swift leap Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.

  John Keats

  Rivers, Foxgloves, Bells

  John Keats (2016). “Keats: 'Ode to a Nightingale' and Other Poems”, p.13, Michael O'Mara Books

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• Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Men, Space, Miles

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.388, Delphi Classics

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• We live in a very tense society. We are pulled apart... and we all need to learn how to pull ourselves together.... I think that at least part of the answer lies in solitude.

  Helen Hayes

  Lying, Thinking, Together

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• Do not allow yourself to be imprisoned by any affection. Keep your solitude. The day, if it ever comes, when you are given true affection, there will be no opposition between interior solitude and friendship, quite the reverse. It is even by this infallible sigh that you will recognize it.

  Simone Weil

  Single, Affection, Given

  Simone Weil (2002). “Gravity and Grace”, p.67, Psychology Press

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• In solitude the mind gains strength, and learns to lean upon herself; in the world it seeks or accepts of a few treacherous supports--the feigned compassion of one, the flattery of a second, the civilities of a third, the friendship of a fourth--they all deceive, and bring the mind back to retirement, reflection, and books.

  Laurence Sterne

  Retirement, Book, Reflection

  Laurence Sterne (1811). “The Beauties of Sterne: With Some Account of His Life”, p.139

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• We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends, and movies should fail, there is still the radio or televsion to fill up the void... We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side... Now instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter, and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Dream, Hero, Being Alone

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• The reason that extended solitude seemed so hard to endure was not that we missed others but that we began to wonder if we ourselves were present, because for so long our existence depended upon assurances from them.

  Doris Grumbach

  Loneliness, Long, Wonder

  Doris Grumbach (2014). “Fifty Days of Solitude: A Memoir”, p.11, Open Road Media

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• Ah! I need solitude. I have come forth to this hill at sunset to see the forms of the mountains in the horizon - to behold and commune with something grander than man. Their mere distance and unprofanedness is an infinite encouragement. it is with infinite yearning and aspiration that I seek solitude, more and more resolved and strong; but with a certain weakness that I seek society ever.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Encouragement, Strong, Distance

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.135, Courier Corporation

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• I thrive best on solitude. If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Names, Two, One Day

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.298, Yale University Press

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• Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.

  Thomas Mann

  Beauty, Opposites, Giving

  Thomas Mann (2010). “Death in Venice: And Seven Other Stories”, p.24, Vintage

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• Nothing is more capable of troubling our reason, and consuming our health, than secret notions of jealousy in solitude.

  Aphra Behn

  Jealousy, Secret, Reason

  Aphra Behn (2015). “Oroonoko: the Royal Slave: Souls Needed for You”, p.169, 谷月社

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• Ah, mon cher, for anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful.

  Albert Camus

  Religion, Weight, Masters

  Albert Camus (1964). “The fall, & Exile and the kingdom”, Random House Inc

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• A great reader seldom recognizes his solitude.

  Mason Cooley

  Writing, Reader

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• It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Lonely, Loneliness

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• What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?

  George Eliot

  Lonely, Loneliness, Being Alone

  George Eliot (2016). “George Eliot Collection: Middlemarch, Adam Bede, Silas Marner, The Lifted Veil, and The Mill on the Floss”, p.935, Xist Publishing

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• He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Sage, Beast, Brutes

  Baltasar Gracian (2006). “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”, p.55, Shambhala Publications

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• There's a difference between solitude and loneliness. I can understand the concept of being a monk for a while.

  Tom Hanks

  Loneliness, Differences, Monk

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• The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.

  Henrik Ibsen

  Strength, Loneliness, Men

  Henrik Ibsen (2016). “An Enemy of the People”, p.125, Henrik Ibsen

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• Solitude is pleasant. Loneliness is not.

  Anna Neagle

  Loneliness, Being Lonely, Pleasant

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• It is very easy to love alone.

  Gertrude Stein

  Love, Easy, Alone In Love

  Gertrude Stein (2016). “GERTRUDE STEIN Ultimate Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Plays, Memoirs & Essays: Three Lives, Tender Buttons, Geography and Plays, Matisse, Picasso and Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas…”, p.2000, e-artnow

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• For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude

  William Wordsworth

  Lying, Eye, Inward

  "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" l. 19 (1815 ed.)

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• I feel the same way about solitude as some people feel about the blessing of the church. It's the light of grace for me. I never close my door behind me without the awareness that I am carrying out an act of mercy toward myself.

  Peter Høeg

  Single, Loneliness, Blessing

  Peter Høeg (2010). “Smilla's Sense of Snow: A Novel”, p.13, Macmillan

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• You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and, nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wisdom, Loneliness, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.173, Courier Corporation

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• Solitude begets whimsies.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Whimsy, Begets

  Mary Wortley Montagu, James Archibald Stuart-Wortley-Mackenzie Wharncliffe (1837). “The Letters and Works: In Three Volumes”, p.279

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