Solitude Quotes

Solitude is essentially the discovery and acceptance of our uniqueness.

- Lawrence Freeman

Respect the child. Wait and see the new product of Nature. Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions. Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.

- Lorraine Hansberry

BATH, n. A kind of mystic ceremony substituted for religious worship, with what spiritual efficacy has not been determined.

- Ambrose Bierce

The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.

- Francis Bacon

Women need real moments of solitude and self-reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away.

- Barbara De Angelis

I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.

- Albert Einstein

You only grow when you are alone.

- Paul Newman

Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness.

- Alfred North Whitehead

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

- May Sarton

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

- Pearl S. Buck

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great person is one who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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 sign that you will recognize it.

- Simone Weil

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them…. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.

- Thomas Merton

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

- Jessamyn West

I love people. I love my family, my children . . . but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.

- Pearl S. Buck

Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.

- C. S. Lewis

...love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other.

b. 1917 Chinese writer and physician

- Han Suyin [Elizabeth Comber]

This Quote | Related Quotes: Love Quotes, Solitude Quotes

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion . . . It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

- Henry David Thoreau