Lonely quotes
1.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet 'for sale', who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society."
"O your life, your lonely lifeWhat have you ever done with it,And done with the great gift of consciousness?What will you ever do before Death's knifeProvides the answer ultimate and appropriate?As I for my part felt in my heart as one who falls,Falls in a parachute, falls endlessly, and feels the vastDraft of the abyss sucking him down and down,An endlessly helplessly falling and appalled clown:This is the way the night passes by, thisIs the overnight endless trip to the famous unfathomable abyss."
"I'm perpetually single. Being alone is not the same as being lonely. I like to do things that glorify being alone. I buy a candle that smells pretty, turn down the lights, and make a playlist of low-key songs. If you don't act like you've been hit by the plague when you're alone on a Friday night, and just see it as a chance to have fun by yourself, it's not a bad day."
"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."
"One cloud feels lonely."
"Unpopular, lonely and loving, Elinor need not trouble, For if she were not so loving, She would not be so miserable."
"When you don't work together you can't emerge as a force. It becomes what some call a "lonely struggle" and individual self-destruction."
"My feeling is, the world is a lonely place. If you can find people who are like you, and find some camaraderie, that's special. I wish there was more of that in the world, in general."
"Reality was utterly coolheaded and utterly lonely."
"Don't let ignorance blind you. Open your eyes, heart and your mind. And if you're feeling alone, know that the world can be a lonely place, but it would be lonelier without you in it."
"Being prime minister is a lonely job... you cannot lead from the crowd."
"What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?"
"Sitting in a room, alone, listening to a CD is to be lonely. Sitting in a room alone with an LP crackling away, or sitting next to the turntable listening to a song at a time via 7-inch single is enjoying the sublime state of solitude."
"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?"
"There is no one so lonely than a man who loves only himself."
"If love is universal, no one can be left out."
"No one really wants to admit they are lonely, and it is never really addressed very much between friends and family. But I have felt lonely many times in my life."
"In Montana, a policeman will pull you over because he is lonely."
"Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so."
"I don't go out of my way to make friends, that's all."
