Solitude

Men and women -- even man and wife are foreigners. Each has reserves that the other cannot enter into, nor understand. These have the effect of frontiers.

By all means use sometimes to be alone.

I praise the Frenchman [La Bruyère], his remark was shrewd— How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat Whom I may whisper—solitude is sweet.

O Wedding Guest! This soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely ’twas, that God himself Scarce seemèd there to be.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind.

How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home Like a complete unknown Like a rolling stone?

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Solitude is that human situation in which I keep myself company.

A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals . . . he seeks to establish a relationship.

I live with the people I create and it has always made my essential loneliness less keen.

Society is no comfort To one not sociable.

For solitude sometimes is best society, And short retirement urges sweet return.

More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchang’d To hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days, On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues; In darkness, and with dangers compass’d round, And solitude.

The Soul selects her own Society— Then—shuts the Door— To her divine Majority— Present no more—

We live, as we dream—alone.

Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

If you can't stand solitude, perhaps others find you boring as well.

Be good and you will be lonely.

’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.

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.

How does it feel

Man loves company—even if it is only that of a small burning candle.