1.
There is much suffering in the world - physical, material, mental. The suffering of some can be blamed on the greed of others. The material and physical suffering is suffering from hunger, from homelessness, from all kinds of diseases. But the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, having no one. I have come more and more to realize that it is being unwanted that is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience.
Mother Teresa
2.
Great eagles fly alone; great lions hunt alone; great souls walk alone-alone with God. Such loneliness is hard to endure, and impossible to enjoy unless God accompanied. Prophets are lone men; they walk alone, pray alone and God makes them alone.
Leonard Ravenhill
3.
No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich Nietzsche
No cost is too great to pay for the privilege of autonomy.
4.
And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.
Soren Kierkegaard
5.
We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.
Dorothy Day
We have all experienced the seclusion of being isolated, and we have discovered that the solution is solidarity.
6.
In loneliness, the lonely one eats himself; in a crowd, the many eat him. Now choose.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In solitude, the isolated individual consumes themselves; in a throng, the multitude devours them. Now select.
7.
Loneliness is the penalty of leadership, but the man who has to make the decisions is assisted greatly if he feels that there is no uncertainty in the minds of those who follow him, and that his orders will be carried out confidently and in the expectation of success.
Ernest Shackleton
8.
We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love.
Mother Teresa
9.
The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The most desolate moment in an individual's life is when they are witnessing their entire universe disintegrate, and all they can do is gape expressionlessly.
10.
The simplest spiritual discipline is some degree of solitude and silence. But it's the hardest, because none of us want to be with someone we don't love. Besides that, we invariably feel bored with ourselves, and all of our loneliness comes to the surface.We won't have the courage to go into that terrifying place without Love to protect us and lead us, without the light and love of God overriding our own self-doubt. Such silence is the most spacious and empowering technique in the world, yet it's not a technique at all. It's precisely the refusal of all technique.
Richard Rohr
11.
Loneliness is one thing, solitude another.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Aloneness is one concept, seclusion another.
12.
Loneliness Is Not The Absence Of Affection, But The Absence Of Direction.
Mike Murdock
Desolate Is Not The Lack Of Affection, But The Absence Of Guidance.
13.
My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.
Warsan Shire
My own company brings me such contentment, I'll only welcome you if your presence surpasses my enjoyment of being alone.
14.
We enter solitude, in which also we lose loneliness. True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One’s inner voices become audible. One feels the attraction of one’s most intimate sources. In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives. The more coherent one becomes within oneself as a creature, the more fully one enters into the communion of all creatures.
Wendell Berry
15.
If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.
Chief Seattle
16.
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
Aldous Huxley
The mightier and more inventive a mind, the more it will be drawn to the belief of aloneness.
17.
Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.
Carl Jung
Isolation is the consequence of being unable to express significant ideas or opinions which are not accepted by others.
18.
I think that part of being human is being alone, and being lonely. I think one of the stresses on a lot of our friendships is that we require the people we love to take away that loneliness. and they really can't. And so, when we still feel lonely, even in the company of people we love, we become angry with them because they don't do what we think they're supposed to. Which is really something that they can't do for us.
Rich Mullins
19.
Although the warrior's life is dedicated to helping others, he realizes that he will never be able to completely share his experience with others...Yet he is more and more in love with the world. That combination of love affair and loneliness is what enables the warrior to constantly reach out to help others. By renouncing his private world, the warrior discovers a greater universe and a fuller and fuller broken heart. This is not something to feel bad about; it is a cause for rejoicing.
Chogyam Trungpa
20.
Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.
Ferdinand Marcos
Command is the reverse side of loneliness, and one who commands must invariably act solo. And operating independently, endure all tribulations unaided.
21.
To be a lighthouse, you must be strong enough to resist every kind of storm, to every kind of loneliness and you must have a powerful light inside you!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
"To be a beacon, you must be stalwart enough to withstand every kind of tempest, to all kinds of isolation and you must have a robust light within you!"
22.
Music has always carried me through times of loneliness. So when I make music, I like it to make people who listen to it feel like they have a friend who reveals something personal to them, rather than trying to be like a god up on a pedestal
John Frusciante
23.
The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone-that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.
Nikola Tesla
24.
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts.
Sam Harris
25.
I had to fight hard against loneliness, abuse, and the knowledge that any mistakes I made would be magnified because I was the only black man out there... I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.
Jackie Robinson
26.
Loneliness and solitude are two different things. When you are lonely, it is easy to delude yourself into believing that you are on the right path. Solitude is better for us, as it means being alone without feeling lonely. But eventually it is best to find a person, the person who will be your mirror. Remember, only in another person's heart can you truly see yourself and the presence of God within you.
Elif Safak
27.
I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.
Warsan Shire
28.
I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.
Simone de Beauvoir
29.
Aloneness is a state of being, whereas loneliness is a state of feeling. It's like the difference between being broke and being poor.
Townes Van Zandt
30.
...We leave our homeland, our property and our friends. We give up the familiar ground that supports our ego, admit the helplessness of ego to control its world and secure itself. We give up our clingings to superiority and self-preservation...It means giving up searching for a home, becoming a refugee, a lonely person who must depend on himself...Fundamentally, no one can help us. If we seek to relieve our loneliness, we will be distracted from the path. Instead, we must make a relationship with loneliness until it becomes aloneness.
Chogyam Trungpa
31.
I think the most common cause of insomnia is simple; its loneliness.
Heath Ledger
32.
Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life's cruelest irony.
Douglas Coupland
33.
When traveling is made too easy and comfortable, its spiritual meaning is lost. This may be called sentimentalism, but a certain sense of loneliness engendered by traveling leads one to reflect upon the meaning of life, for life is after all a travelling from one unknown to another unknown.
D.T. Suzuki
34.
Since God intends to make you like Jesus, he will take you through the same experiences Jesus went through. That includes loneliness, temptation, stress, criticism, rejection, and many other problems.
Rick Warren
35.
A woman who is willing to be herself and pursue her own potential runs not so much the risk of loneliness, as the challenge of exposure to more interesting men - and people in general.
Lorraine Hansberry
36.
You can have everything in the world and still be the loneliest man. And that is the most bitter type of loneliness, success has brought me world idolisation and millions of pounds. But it's prevented me from having the one thing we all need: A loving, ongoing relationship.
Freddie Mercury
37.
I know the dark delight of being strange, The penalty of difference in the crowd, The loneliness of wisdom among fools.
Claude McKay
38.
Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate.
Germaine Greer
39.
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.
Friedrich Nietzsche
40.
For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.
Francis Bacon
42.
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
Thomas Wolfe
43.
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.
Octavio Paz
44.
I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.
Jorge Luis Borges
45.
Loneliness is the worst pain in this world. It constantly eats away the person's heart, and can cause the person to hate, to feel enraged. It is like a wound of the heart; the type of wounds that cannot go away with a kiss or a hug. The only thing that can make this great pain go away is love and compassion, another human heart to pull them out of this hell.
Princess Diana
46.
We come together only to go apart again. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle & misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. The law of life. No sense in battling against it.
R.K. Narayan
47.
If youve ever had that feeling of loneliness, of being an outsider, it never quite leaves you. You can be happy or successful or whatever, but that thing still stays within you.
Tim Burton
48.
Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, & loneliness.
Dallas Willard
49.
Almost without exception alcoholics are tortured by loneliness.
Bill W.
50.
If you love, you will suffer. The only way to protect yourself against suffering is to protect yourself against love - and that is the greatest suffering of all, loneliness.
Peter Kreeft