quotations about solitude
The human animal needs a freedom seldom mentioned, freedom from intrusion. He needs a little privacy quite as much as he wants understanding or vitamins or exercise or praise.
PHYLLIS MCGINLEY
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The Province of the Heart
The capacity of the individual to be alone [is] one of the most important signs of maturity in emotional development.
D. W. WINNICOTT
"The capacity to be alone", The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment
'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone--man with his God must strive.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold
Solitude is indeed dangerous for a working intelligence. We need to have around us people who think and speak. When we are alone for a long time we people the void with phantoms.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Le Horla et autres contes fantastiques
Solitude, though favorable to the development of genius, is not favorable to the growth of character.
GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Solitude holds a cup sparkling with bliss in her right hand, a raging dagger in her left; to the blest she offers her goblet, but stretches toward the wretch the ruthless steel!
FRIEDRICH GOTTLIEB KLOPSTOCK
Der Messias
There's a river flowing away from my door
Think I'll sail away
Oh, and one day baby
I will feel no pain
Think it's raining in my soul
Flowing from my eyes
Think this morning will see us
Say our last goodbyes
I'm leaving Lady Solitude behind me
You understand
RICHARD HAWLEY
"Lady Solitude"
The value of solitude -- one of it's values -- is, of course, that there is nothing to cushion against attacks from within.
MAY SARTON
Journal of a Solitude
We're afraid of solitude because we're afraid of the feelings that will rise before we can be at ease, afraid to confront who we are when stripped of our "doing" nature. We feel a need to be surrounded by people, by activity; to entrain with another's rhythm -- anything but solitude ... Solitude takes practice. It requires facing down loneliness and realizing that there is nothing more important you can do. Far from being an indulgence, quiet contemplation -- "doing nothing" -- is as restorative as an elixir.
STEPHAN RECHTSCHAFFEN
Timeshifting: Creating More Time to Enjoy Your Life
What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never bathe himself in cool solitude?
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The American Notebooks, 1836
Dawn breaks, I am alone
I'm awake, eyes unopened
Half in the dark, half in the room
Half in the light sealed by your womb
Sail soon my eyes out in the dark
Oceans of sighs, adrift in her bark
Islands lay scattered, island won't talk
Life hardly matters here in the dark
I want you in solitude
I need you in solitude
THREE FISH
"Solitude"
Sail away, I sail away, I sail nowhere, nowhere, nowhere
Hear her laugh through the air
Down from the past into my lair
I want you in solitude
THREE FISH
"Solitude"
Solitude is separate experience.
ALICE MEYNELL
"Solitude", The Spirit of Place and Other Essays
In solitude, if we escape the example of bad men, we likewise want the conversation and counsel of the good.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Dryden
Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
JODI PICOULT
My Sister's Keeper
I love solitude, but I prize it most when plenty of company is available.
SAUL BELLOW
letter to Albert Glotzer, April 19, 1996
Solitude bears the same relation to the mind, that sleep does to the body; it affords it the necessary opportunity for repose and recovery.
W. G. SIMMS
attributed, Day's Collacon
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Essays and Aphorisms
Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowded hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden: Or, Life in the Woods