Quotes about loneliness

Solitude is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place.

Love is essential, gregariousness is optional.

Deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort’s words, “It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.”

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books that were written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to.

Don't attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you're lonely. Loneliness is the human condition. No one is ever going to fill that space. The best you can do is know yourself... know what you want.

People were just like that. We couldn't even see each other, just the shadows moving, pushed by unseen winds.

'By my lights, my son, you are a young man. [...] there should be love in your life. Am I at fault in my thinking?'

'Not at fault, Senior Brother. I loved once, and in truth I could love again. But the pain of loss was too much for me. I would rather live alone than suffer for it.'

'Then you are here to hide, Charreos, and it is not a good reason. The gift of life is too great to waste in such a fashion...'

They live forever, but many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life’s value.

He had walked through woods, and sat at night beside a campfire. Although he had through the memories learned about the pain of loss and loneliness, now he gained, too, an understanding of solitude and its joy.

The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.

They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely.

When Hobbes referred to the dire state of human beings in having ‘nasty, brutish and short’ lives, he also pointed, in the same sentence, to the disturbing adversity of being ‘solitary’. Escape from isolation may not only be important for the quality of human life, it can also contribute powerfully to understanding and responding to the other deprivations from which human beings suffer. There is surely a basic strength here which is complementary to the engagement in which theories of justice are involved.