Loneliness quotes

Loneliness

1.4K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

1.4K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside loneliness — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Loneliness quotes (page 9 of 72)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Loneliness

"I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was consolation. Loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off."

Read quote 14 likes
John Steinbeck Novelist, Journalist
Loneliness

"We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — "Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.""

Read quote 14 likes
Loneliness

"Most of the writers I know are weird hybrids. There's a strong streak of egomania coupled with extreme shyness. Writing's kind of like exhibitionism in private. And there's also a strange loneliness, and a desire to have some kind of conversation with people, but not a real great ability to do it in person."

Read quote 13 likes
Thomas Merton Writer, Monk
Loneliness

"The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God. Such a one is alone with God in all places, and he alone truly enjoys the companionship of other men, because he loves them in God in Whom their presence is not tiresome, and because of Whom his own love for them can never know satiety."

Read quote 13 likes
George Orwell Writer, Journalist
Loneliness

"Lack of money means discomfort, means squalid worries, means shortage of tobacco, means ever-present consciousness of failure-above all, it means loneliness."

Read quote 13 likes
D. H. Lawrence Novelist, Poet
Loneliness

"It's no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You've got to stick to it all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times! But you have to wait for the times. Accept your own aloneness and stick to it, all your life. And then accept the times when the gap is filled in, when they come. But they've got to come. You can't force them."

Read quote 12 likes
C. S. Lewis Writer, Scholar
Loneliness

"Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

Read quote 12 likes
C. S. Lewis Writer, Scholar
Loneliness

"We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship."

Read quote 12 likes
Loneliness

"SOLIDAO, LONELINESS. What is it that we call loneliness. It can't simply be the absence of others, you can be alone and not lonely, and you can be among people and yet be lonely. So what is it? ... it isn't only that others are there, that they fill up the space next to us. But even when they celebrate us or give advice in a friendly conversation, clever, sensitive advice: even then we can be lonely. So loneliness is not something simply connected with the presence of others or with what they do. Then what? What on earth?"

Read quote 12 likes