LONELINESS QUOTES III
quotations about loneliness
The truly solitary being is not the man who is abandoned by men, but the man who suffers in their midst, who drags his desert through the marketplace and deploys his talents as a smiling leper, a mountebank of the irreparable.
EMIL CIORAN
A Short History of Decay
The survival of the fittest is going to make some man very lonesome some day.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
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
Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close proximity with someone who has ceased to communicate.
GERMAINE GREER
The Female Eunuch
We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
The Proud Highway
Labor in loneliness is irksome.
MARK TWAIN
The Innocents Abroad
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
THE BEATLES
"Eleanor Rigby", Revolver
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."
JOHN STEINBECK
"In Awe of Words", The Exonian, 1930
Everyone's alone -- or so it seems to me.
They make noises, and think they are talking to each other;
They make faces, and think they understand each other.
And I'm sure they don't. Is that a delusion?
T. S. ELIOT
The Cocktail Party
Any decent society must generate a feeling of community. Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of belonging. Yet today the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness.
ALVIN TOFFLER
The Third Wave
Loneliness doesn't have much to do with where you are.
HUGH HEFNER
Esquire, Jun. 2002
I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick.
JOHN STEINBECK
Of Mice and Men
We live as we dream--alone.
JOSEPH CONRAD
Heart of Darkness
Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.
BRAM STOKER
Dracula
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
Nothing is more sterile or lamentable than the man content to live within himself.
HAROLD PINTER
Tea Party
Late at night, when you're so lonely,
your shoulders curl toward the center of your body,
you call no one and you don't call out.
This is dignity. This is the pure loneliness
that made Christ think he was God.
This is why lunatics smile at their thoughts.
MICHAEL RYAN
"The Pure Loneliness", New and Selected Poems
Physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"The Prison and the Angel"
What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch