"Respect for sovereignity, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs without the love."
Loneliness quotes
Loneliness
1.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Loneliness quotes (page 24 of 72)
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"Isolation, not solitude, breaks men. If I could not find the means to deal with the isolation, then my options were severely limited. I began to call up memories of places, people, events, food-anything I could do to occupy my mind and remind myself that, even if I was being treated like an animal, I was still a living breathing human being."
"I have learned to be steady in my course of love, or fear, or loneliness, rather than impulsive in its wasting, either lyrically or emotionally."
"It's so effortless to let my loneliness defeat me, make me mold myself to whatever would (in some way - but not wholly) relieve it. I must never forget it... I want sensuality and sensitivity, both... Let me never deny that... I want to err on the side of violence and excess, rather than to underfill my moments."
"Feeling lonely and ignoble indicates that you haven't been patient."
"We long to connect, all of us. We long to be noticed, to be cared for, to matter. Generosity is the invisible salve on our wound of loneliness, one that benefits both sides, over and over again."
"I'm supposed to be, I am an artist. Yes, I'm lonely. But I'm married to my loneliness."
"Loneliness is holding the one you love When you know you might never hold him again. Even lost in the darkness My heart will find you The soul die at the hand of the one who carries it. If I could find a place to run away Hidden safely, I would be there today. The darkest daylight finds me."
"However contradictory the coroner's report — whether he pronounces Consumption or Loneliness or Suicide to be the cause of death — isn't it plain how the true artist-seer actually dies? I say that the true artist-seer, the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human conscience."
"I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone—a-l-o-n-e: which is the one New York prayer that rarely gets lost or delayed in channels, and in no time at all everything I touched turned to solid loneliness."
"I had traded the fight against love for the fight against loneliness, the fight against life for the fight against death."
"People living alone get used to loneliness."
"It was as if for the remainder of his life he was condemned to carry with him the egos of certain people, early met and early loved, and to be only as complete as they were complete themselves. There was some element of loneliness involved--so easy to be loved--so hard to love."
"Touch is... one of the most ancient transactions, a defiance of the plasma membrane and the loneliness it brought."
"Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams."
"Loneliness is a kind of prison. [Vincent Van Gogh]"
"A book is not an end in itself; it is only a way to touch someone - a bridge extended across a space of loneliness and obscurity - and sometimes it is a way of winning other people to our causes."
"There have been times in my life when I have felt I was lonely, but I don't think you want to live your life in order to mitigate against loneliness."
"I hold my face in my two hands. No, I am not crying. I hold my face in my two hands to keep the loneliness warm - two hands protecting, two hands nourishing, two hands preventing my soul from leaving me in anger."
"Loneliness cannot be alleviated just by the coming together of two bodies, unless there is also good communication, understanding, and loving kindness."