quotations about loneliness
There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought--a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!
MARK TWAIN
Notice: Undefined variable: id in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 37
"The Mysterious Stranger", The Complete Short Stories
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Nothing is more sterile or lamentable than the man content to live within himself.
HAROLD PINTER
Tea Party
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Is it really possible to avoid loneliness, or to keep it in control? Surely. The matter is wholly personal. The way to begin is, oddly enough, by learning how to be impersonal, to stop the eternal concern for oneself, in caring more and more for the things of interest outside. For loneliness, though it may seem unselfish, is really a kind of selfishness. It is emphasis of self even while being a depreciation of self. If the lonely people would only stop thinking about themselves they would cease to be lonely.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Loneliness", Reactions and Other Essays Discussing Those States of Feeling and Attitude of Mind That Find Expression In Our Individual Qualities
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Each way means loneliness -- and communion.
T. S. ELIOT
The Cocktail Party
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Sputnik Sweetheart
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
The Loneliness One dare not sound --
And would as soon surmise
AS in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size --
The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see --
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny --
The Horror not to be surveyed --
But skirted in the Dark --
With Consciousness suspended --
And Being under Lock --
I fear me this -- is Loneliness --
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate -- or seal --
EMILY DICKINSON
"The Loneliness One Dare Not Sound", Poems
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
The feeling of loneliness is unique to humans. A tree or a bird may seem to be lonely, but this is an attribute bestowed by the person making the observation. The tree or the bird is incapable of perceiving loneliness. This feeling occurs when a person is alone, and, moved by his emotions, associates his own circumstances with those of the bird or the tree that he sees before him. Since this feeling entails an element of self-examination, it is not a purely objective observation. The feeling of loneliness produced is thus a form of aesthetics, in that while observing one's external environment, one is at the same time examining the self that is located within it, and to a certain extent this is an affirmation of one's own personal worth.
GAO XINGJIAN
speech presented on receiving the Golden Plate Award at the Forty-first International Achievement Summit of the American Academy of Achievement, Jun. 8, 2002
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is as true of men as of dogs.
ERIC HOFFER
"Thoughts of Eric Hoffer", The New York Times Magazine, Apr. 25, 1971
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
There is a wilderness we walk alone
However well-companioned.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
Western Star
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
No one ever discovers the depths of his own loneliness.
GEORGES BERNANOS
The Diary of a Country Priest
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Lonely people, in talking to each other can make each other lonelier.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
The Autumn Garden
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
There was nothing lonelier than a man with a million friends.
WILLIAM SHATNER
The Ashes of Eden
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Loneliness is one of the bugbears of mankind. With some people, it is a constant source of unhappiness. They make plans, sometimes exceedingly complex, to keep it at bay. They think that it lies outside. It really lies within their own consciousness.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Loneliness", Reactions and Other Essays
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
If one's different, one's bound to be lonely.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"The Prison and the Angel"
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.
JANET FITCH
White Oleander
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
Labor in loneliness is irksome.
MARK TWAIN
The Innocents Abroad
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
And I was alone, had been for a while, and might be for a while, but it no longer frightened me the way it had. I was discovering something terrifyingly simple: there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I was discovering this in the way, I suppose, that everybody does, but having tried, endlessly, to do something about it.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
A lonely man is a lonesome thing, a stone, a bone, a stick, a receptacle for Gilbey's gin, a stooped figure sitting at the edge of a hotel bed, heaving copious sighs like the autumn wind.
JOHN CHEEVER
"The Sixties", John Cheever: The Journals
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65
We live as we dream--alone.
JOSEPH CONRAD
Heart of Darkness
Notice: Undefined index: bio in /hermes/walnacweb03/walnacweb03ak/b2149/pow.notablequote/htdocs/l/includes/quoter_subj.php on line 65