quotations about solitude
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
Solitude is separate experience.
ALICE MEYNELL
"Solitude", The Spirit of Place and Other Essays
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"
I love solitude, but I prize it most when plenty of company is available.
SAUL BELLOW
letter to Albert Glotzer, April 19, 1996
'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, though favorable to the development of genius, is not favorable to the growth of character.
GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Solitude is very sad,
Too much company twice as bad.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
"Blackberries"
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
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
Driftin' Dreamin'
In an Azure mood,
Stardust gleamin'
Thru my solitude:
Here in my seclusion,
You're a blue illusion
While I'm in this Azure interlude.
ELLA FITZGERALD
"Azure"
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"
There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.
COLETTE
Earthly Paradise: An Autobiography
And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude,
Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,
She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort
Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impaired.
JOHN MILTON
Comus
I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other.
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Letters to a Young Poet
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
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
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
The Province of the Heart
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"
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 independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.
HERMANN HESSE
Steppenwolf