Being Alone quotes
223 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company."
"Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born."
"When your world falls apart and you're left with just yourself, you're forced to discover who you are without all the beliefs, expectations, views, & self-image provided by some teacher or system. The calculating mind gives way to the intuitive mind, Knowing without Thinking."
"Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible."
"The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone-that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside being alone — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."
"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."
"Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone."
"I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach."
"No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength"
"All we ask is to be let alone."
"It's better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone - so far."
"In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone."
"I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone."
"Yes, I guess you could say I am a loner, but I feel more lonely in a crowed room with boring people than I feel on my own."
"I remember my grandfather telling me how each of us must live with a full measure of loneliness that is inescapable, and we must not destroy ourselves with our passion to escape the aloneness."
"One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude."
"Without great solitude no serious work is possible."
"Solitude is independence."
"I'll be honest with you. I'm a little bit of a loner. It's been a big part of my maturing process to learn to allow people to support me. I tend to be very self-reliant and private. And I have this history of wanting to work things out on my own and protect people from what's going on with me."
"I don't like to be labeled as lonely just because I am alone."
"Art starts alone - and convinces society later."
"Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself."
"If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight."
"I don't want to be alone, I want to be left alone."
