Lonely quotes
1.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"It is a brave thing to have courage to be an individual; it is also, perhaps, a lonely thing. But it is better than not being an individual, which is to be nobody at all."
"Individuals bearing witness do not change history; only movements that understand their social world can do that. Movements encourage solidarity; the moral individual is likely, all unwittingly, to do the opposite, for bearing witness is lonely: it breeds feelings of superiority and moralistic anger against those who are not doing the same."
"Envy makes people lonely, and brings them great suffering. It is horrible stuff to have in our flesh, and it is a sin we need to take deadly seriously."
"Progressive liberals seem incapable of stating the obvious truth: that we who are well off should be willing to share more of what we have with poor people not for the poor people's sake but for our own; i.e., we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people."
"If you write fiction, you're by yourself. There are certain advantages to that in that you don't have to explain anything to anybody. But when you get in with others who share the loneliness of the whole enterprise, you're not lonely anymore."
"The words 'alone,' 'lonely,' and 'loneliness' are three of the most powerful words in the English language. Those words say that we are human; they are like the words hunger and thirst. But they are not words about the body, they are words about the soul."
"It was one of those hot, silent nights, when people sit at windows listening for the thunder which they know will shortly break; when they recall dismal tales of hurricanes and earthquakes; and of lonely travellers on open plains, and lonely ships at sea, struck by lightning."
"I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!"
"From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again."
"You'll walk with me out on the wire, cuz baby, I'm just a scared and lonely rider, but I gotta know how it feels... I want to know love is wild, babe, I want to know love is real."
"It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration."
"Often have I sighed to measure By myself a lonely pleasure,- Sighed to think I read a book, Only read, perhaps, by me."
"Where else? I belong to a lost generation and am comfortable only in the company of others who are lost and lonely."
"You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. & great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. & even loved in spite of ourselves."
"How rich art is, if one can only remember what one has seen, one is never empty of thoughts or truly lonely, never alone."
"The panic disappeared under those soothing old fingers and the breathing slowed down and stopped hurting the chest as if a fox was caught in it, and then at last Mr. Kroger began to lecture the boy as he used to, Pablo, he murmured, don't ever be so afraid of being lonely that you forget to be careful. Don't forget that you will find it sometimes but other times you won't be lucky, and those are the times when you have got to be patient, since patience is what you must have when you don't have luck."
"Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one and the faint after-glow of the red sunset filled the west."
"It's lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time-consuming and energy consuming. It is easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s."
"Historical research to this day remains unorganized, and the historian is expected to make his own instruments or do without them; and so with wooden ploughs we continue to draw lonely furrows, most successfully when we strike sand."
"You have a choice in life. Would you rather be lonely or miserable? I would rather be lonely. A lot of people are miserable in a marriage and they don't get along with their wife or husband and it's not worth it."
