Seclusion Quotes

“Man was born for society. However little He may be attached to the World, He never can wholly forget it, or bear to be wholly forgotten by it. Disgusted at the guilt or absurdity of Mankind, the Misanthrope flies from it: He resolves to become an Hermit, and buries himself in the Cavern of some gloomy Rock. While Hate inflames his bosom, possibly He may feel contented with his situation: But when his passions begin to cool; when Time has mellowed his sorrows, and healed those wounds which He bore with him to his solitude, think you that Content becomes his Companion? Ah! no, Rosario. No longer sustained by the violence of his passions, He feels all the monotony of his way of living, and his heart becomes the prey of Ennui and weariness. He looks round, and finds himself alone in the Universe: The love of society revives in his bosom, and He pants to return to that world which He has abandoned. Nature loses all her charms in his eyes: No one is near him to point out her beauties, or share in his admiration of her excellence and variety. Propped upon the fragment of some Rock, He gazes upon the tumbling waterfall with a vacant eye, He views without emotion the glory of the setting Sun. Slowly He returns to his Cell at Evening, for no one there is anxious for his arrival; He has no comfort in his solitary unsavoury meal: He throws himself upon his couch of Moss despondent and dissatisfied, and wakes only to pass a day as joyless, as monotonous as the former.”
― Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk

“You must suffer me to go my own dark way.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

“All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

“People who smile while they are alone used to be called insane, until we invented smartphones and social media.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Solitude is the house of peace.”
― T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence

“. . . in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker . . .”
― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

“It is so easy at times for a lonely individual to begin fantasizing about what the people outside are saying about him and, in result, irrationally and fearfully, and sometimes angrily, fancy himself a villain.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands
Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken,
Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken,
Luminously-peopled air ascends;
And past the poppies bluish neutral distance
Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach
Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence:
Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.”
― Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings

“In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong.”
― Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs

“Thus weary of the world, away she hies,
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey'd;
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen.”
― William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis

“Social distancing is staying away from people not from your purpose.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“In isolation you just lose the company but don't lose the purpose.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Your soul feels lonely not when you lack company, but when you lack the cause.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Law school is a test – not a test of strength, creativity, or intelligence – but one of endurance. A law student’s greatest nemesis is not mastering legal concepts, but enduring the hours of solitude, which endless studying requires.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Distance means so little, when life means so much.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Saving a life just got much more important than savouring a lifestyle.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Loneliness is agony of being alone and solitude is joy of being alone.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Telling people-did it ever make things better?”
― Anne Rice, The Witching Hour

“The vast majority of people in today's society seem totally oblivious to our existence. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives us a good reason to look down on them, while finding dark corners in which to live self-sufficient, invisible lives.”
― Ge Fei, The Invisibility Cloak

“he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody secrets.”
― Herman Melville

“Goodness knows what hallucinations of danger and siege people are subject to, if they live anywhere too beautiful and too sequestered.”
― Tessa Hadley, The Master Bedroom

“Seclusion is a right, not a privilege”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

“There were also drawings of the creatures who live inside - how they eat, how they move, how they mate - because people forget about creatures who live in shells.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“A sundry of intimate encounters with the vibrant intellect of perceptive thinkers dissolves a recluse’s shroud of seclusion. Can I manufacture the needed first aid kit to arrest my internal hemorrhaging? Can I stave off my mental deterioration by exploring the written words of renowned authors? Can I map a course out of my present quandary by scouring the libraries brimming with the beautiful mind works of previous generations of eminent writers? Will diligent encounters with the incisive thoughts of outstanding essayist shred the indivisible bars shielding my indeterminate self and release me from of the monochrome cage of self-imposed isolation? Can respected writers’ perceptive soul-searching create a template for my inchoative thoughts spontaneously to mature?”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Whichever direction our [desires] pushes us, we must become more [concious] about continuously pulling in the [opposite] direction.

Back to Center.”
― Xilaristw

“If loneliness bothers you when you’re alone then you have always been a bad company to yourself and to others.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Regarding the straying of the dwelling place, it is generally taught that in order to perfect ultimate realization of the view someone who has a temporary realization of it should go to a secluded open area, such as a mountain retreat or a charnel ground. You may temporarily possess the view, but in order to sustain it, you must stay in mountain hermitages. An unwholesome dwelling place may indeed cause your view to go astray.”
― Padmasambhava, Advice from the Lotus-Born: A Collection of Padmasambhava's Advice to the Dakini Yeshe Tsogyal and Other Close Disciples

“Whatever is going on inside the hearts of people today, I want no part of it. Besides, it’s not like I can change it. I could shout on the street corner all day and no one will really hear me. And since I have no interest in throwing straw wrenches into societal gears that aren’t going to be stopped anyway, I don’t care anymore. I just don’t fucking care.”
― Michael Vito Tosto, Elsewhere and Otherwise: Essays

“Perhaps seclusion is exactly what’s needed to understand the depth that change presents to life.”
― Saim .A. Cheeda

“Geniuses build worlds too vast for crowds.”
― Samraat Singh, The Architect’s Web