Quotes about loneliness

More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged

To hoarse or mute, though fall'n, and evil tongues;

In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,

And solitude.

Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed. Occasionally there were the dim signals from deep within the cavern in which another man was located — so that each might grope toward the other. Yet because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation — there was the hunted fear of man for man, the savage rapacity of man toward man.

There can never be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corrdiors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save. There never was a man so helpless as one who cannot remember.

Captain Saunders, who came from Dallas and had no intention of being impressed by any prince, found himself unexpectedly moved by the wide, sad eyes. There were eyes that had seen too many receptions and parades, that had had to watch countless totally uninteresting things, that had never been allowed to stray far from the carefully planned official routes. Looking at that proud but weary face, Captain Saunders glimpsed for the first time the ultimate loneliness of royalty.

Estoy solo entre materias desvencijadas,

la lluvia cae sobre mí, y se me parece,

se me parece con su desvarío,solitaria en el mundo muerto,

rechazada al caer, y sin forma obstinada.

At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and looking for bosom friendships, I couldn't find any takers so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the most like not being alone. The moment I decided I'd rather be alone and not have anyone telling me their problems, everybody I'd never even seen before in my life started running after me to tell me things I'd just decided I didn't think it was a good idea to hear about. As soon as I became a loner in my own mind, that's when I got what you might call a "following." As soon as you stop wanting something you get it. I've found that to be absolutely axiomatic.

I don't see anything wrong with being alone, it feels great to me. People make a big thing about personal love. It doesn't have to be such a big thing. The same for living - people make a big thing about that too. But personal living and personal loving are the two things the Eastern-type wise men don't think about.

Madame Jules was a woman of no age. She had the parchment skin and changeless features peculiar to old maids whom no one ever knew in their younger years.

Thérèse, residing in damp obscurity, in gloomy, crushing silence, saw life expand before her in all its nakedness, each night bringing the same cold couch, and each morn the same empty day.

Thérèse could not find one human being, not one living being among these grotesque and sinister creatures, with whom she was shut up; sometimes she had hallucinations, she imagined herself buried at the bottom of a tomb, in company with mechanical corpses, who, when the strings were pulled, moved their heads, and agitated their legs and arms.

For anyone who is alone, without God and without a master, the weight of days is dreadful. Hence one must choose a master, God being out of style.

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will... The really diligent student... is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome.