“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The best thinking has been done in solitude.”
Thomas A. Edison
“The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.”
Voltaire
“Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.”
Winston Churchill
“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”
Henry David Thoreau
“I myself am best when least in company.”
William Shakespeare
“One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.”
Albert Einstein
“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.”
Pablo Picasso
“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”
Marcus Aurelius
“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.”
May Sarton
“Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us and help us decide what to do with our life.”
Paulo Coelho
“In the temple of his spirit, each man is alone.”
Ayn Rand
“Not being comfortable alone means you must spend more time alone.”
Maxime Lagacé
“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”
Albert Einstein
“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”
Aldous Huxley
“Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
“The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude.”
Nikola Tesla
“My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“In proportion as a person simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude.”
Henry David Thoreau
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Blaise Pascal
“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
“I’ve often been with someone and wished I was alone. I’ve never been alone and wished I was not.”
Derek Sivers
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
Aristotle
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”
Franz Kakfa
“By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear.”
George Herbert
Have any other quotes about solitude you’d add to the list? Let me know in the comments!
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