Need some private time? These solitude quotes show the benefit of taking time to recharge and renew yourself without distractions.
Solitude is an interesting concept. Some find the idea of being alone to be daunting, isolating, and even scary.
But solitude is empowering! Learning to be alone without feeling lonely is a great way to enjoy silence and bring peace and tranquility into your thoughts and actions.
So enjoy these thoughts on solitude and refresh your outlook on life today.
Top 10 Solitude Quotes
Solitude appeared to me as the only fit state of man.
Walter Benjamin
In solitude I find my answers.
Kristen Butler
Some of us are born to a solitary life.
Philippa Gregory
The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.
Voltaire
Solitude is where one discovers one is not alone.
Marty Rubin
The thoughtful soul to solitude retires.
Omar Khayyam
Solitude is a catalyst for innovation.
Susan Cain
Without great solitude no serious work is possible.
Pablo Picasso
Quotes about Solitude
Solitude is a lost art in these days of ultra-connectedness.
Leo Babauta
Solitude, in these days as much as ever, is an absolute necessity.
Leo Babauta
Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
Arthur Schopenhauer
To go out with the setting sun on an empty beach is to truly embrace your solitude.
Jeanne Moreau
Solitude is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it.
Deepak Chopra
I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In stillness lives wisdom. In quiet you’ll find peace. In solitude you’ll remember yourself.
Robin Sharma
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.
Paolo Coelho
Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.
Liv Tyler
He who understands humanity seeks solitude.
Ali ibn Abi Talib
Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.
Lao Tzu
Solitude is un-American.
Erica Jong
Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone, and the only one who seeks out another.
Octavio Paz
Life is an island in an ocean of solitude and seclusion.
Khalil Gibran
Solitude is like punctuation. A paragraph without periods and commas would be exhausting to read.
Arnie Kozak
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
Blaise Pascal
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
James Russell Lowell
When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.
William Wordsworth
They simply never understand, do they, that sometimes solitude is one of the most beautiful things on earth?
Charles Bukowski
It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.
Rumi
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.
Edward Gibbon
Solitude is the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter.
Henri Nouwen
Men fear silence as they fear solitude, because both give them a glimpse of the terror of life’s nothingness.
Andre Maurois
You don’t need to be a monk to find solitude, nor do you need to be a hermit to enjoy it.
Leo Babauta
A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.
Don DeLillo
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
Francis Bacon
Who hears music feels his solitude peopled at once.
Robert Browning
Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.
Stephen Crane
Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell you that solitude is fine.
Honore de Balzac
Solitude isn’t loneliness. Solitude is when the entire serene universe seems to surround and hold you quietly.
Victoria Erickson
True solitude is found in the wild places, where one is without human obligation. One’s inner voices become audible… In consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives.
Wendell Berry
Solitude is a good place to visit but a poor play to stay.
Josh Billings
Solitude is dangerous. It’s very addictive. It becomes a habit after you realise how peaceful and calm it is. It’s like you don’t want to deal with people anymore because they drain your energy.
Jim Carrey
Religion is what an individual does with his solitariness.
Alfred North Whitehead
Solitude sometimes is best society.
John Milton
We live in a very tense society. We are pulled apart… and we all need to learn how to pull ourselves together… I think that at least part of the answer lies in solitude.
Helen Hayes
Solitude and Self
Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.
Marcus Aurelius
You are born alone. You die alone. The value of the space in between is trust and love.
Louise Bourgeois
Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.
May Sarton
Once you know how to take care of yourself, company becomes an option.
Keanu Reeves
Your inner voice is the voice of divinity. To hear it, we need to be in solitude, even in crowded places.
A. R. Rahman
It’s an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That’s always been a tug of war for me.
Jodie Foster
Solitude is where I place my chaos to rest and awaken my inner peace.
Nikki Rowe
In solitude, listen to your heart, for at that moment, it speaks nothing but the truth.
Michael Bassey Johnson
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou
Your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.
Rainer Maria Rilke
That is why I go into solitude so as not to drink out of everybody’s cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think as I really think; after a time it always seems as though they want to banish me from myself and rob me of my soul and I grow angry with everybody and fear everybody.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.
Paolo Coelho
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
I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.
Michel de Montaigne
Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude.
Miguel de Unamuno
I know what men want. Men want to be really, really close to someone who will leave them alone.
Elayne Boosler
Spend some time alone. There’s so much you don’t know about yourself.
Thibaut
Don’t fear solitude: If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself. But don’t get too attached to it – it may become an addiction.
Paulo Coelho
I try to factor solitude into my life because more and more, that’s becoming a very precious and rare commodity.
Robyn Davidson
The time when most of you should withdraw into yourself is when you are forced to be in a crowd.
Epicurus
Ordinary men hate solitude. But the Master makes use of it, embracing his aloneness, realizing he is one with the whole universe.
Lao Tzu
In solitude one finds only what he carries there with him.
Juan Ramon Jimenez
Thinking and Solitude Quotes
Imagine a temple inside your mind, a haven from the chaos of the world. Visit often.
Marienne Williamson
The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
Albert Einstein
Sometimes the solitary voice can be the best one.
Frank Miller
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
Aldous Huxley
In solitude you will find yourselves, and the pure thoughts will be realized.
Brian Mellor, Joseph of Arimathea
People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.
Carl Jung
In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.
Laurence Sterne
The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude.
Nikola Tesla
Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind.
Nikola Tesla
Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.
Criss Jami
I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius.
Edward Gibbon
Solitude was my only consolation – deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
Mary Shelley
We need society, and we need solitude also, as we need summer and winter, day and night, exercise and rest.
Philip Gilbert Hamerton
Man is nostalgia and a search for communion. Therefore, when he is aware of himself he is aware of his lack of another, that is, of his solitude.
Octavio Paz
Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true parent of genius. In all ages solitude has been called for, has been flown to.
Benjamin Disraeli
Solitude and Growth
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
Winston Churchill
I lived in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in maturity.
Albert Einstein
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
One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Loneliness is to be avoided, solitude is to be sought.
Tom Hanks
It’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone.
Mahatma Gandhi
Wherever you may seek solitude, men will ferret you out and compel you to belong to their desperate company of oddfellows.
Henry David Thoreau
The secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude.
Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.
Albert Einstein
In solitude we realize that nothing human is alien to us.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Talent is nurtured in solitude… A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Solitude is the strength of being alone. It’s where we become our best company.
Jay Shetty
Solitude is strength; to depend on the presence of the crowd is weakness. The man who needs a mob to nerve him is much more alone than he imagines.
Paul Brunton
In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.
Albert Camus
Although the wish for solitude can be a denial of dependence, a capacity for solitude may be its fullest acknowledgment.
Adam Phillips
Give solitude a chance. You’ve got nothing to lose. And your life to gain back.
Joshua Becker
To have passed through life and never experienced solitude is to have never known oneself. To have never known oneself is to have never known anyone.
Joseph Krutch
Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are.
Robert Cecil
Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
One of the greatest necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.
Carl Sandburg
To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do to this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions.
Deepak Chopra
Solitude and Isolation
Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.
Fred Rogers
In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.
Rollo May, Man’s Search for Himself
By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear.
George Herbert
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
Henry David Thoreau
I don’t want to be alone. I want to be left alone.
Audrey Hepburn
When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death — ourselves.
Eda LeShan
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?
Albert Einstein
A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that could ever be given you.
Rumi
I was a man who thrived on solitude; without it I was like another man without food or water. Each day without solitude weakened me. I took no pride in my solitude; but I was dependent on it. The darkness of the room was like sunlight to me.
Charles Bukowski
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 Kafka
In the temple of his spirit, each man is alone.
Ayn Rand
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone.
Henry David Thoreau
It would do the world good if every person would compel himself to often be alone. Most of the world’s progress has come from such.
Deepak Chopra
I live in solitude. I have need of solitude to do the next day’s work. I can’t be to parties where the noise tires me. I can’t speak on the telephone. I must have complete calm.
Yves Saint Laurent
Make the time to be alone. Your best ideas live within solitude.
Robin Sharma
There’s staggering power in leaving the world and heading out into some solitude for at least and hour every day.
Robin Sharma
We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.
Hermann Hesse
A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.
Oscar Wilde
I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.
Henry David Thoreau
I’ve never been lonely. I like myself. I’m the best form of entertainment I have.
Charles Bukowski
When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.
Gertrude Stein
I don’t mind being alone. I just don’t want to be part of the crowd.
Naval Ravikant
On being alone: I think it’s a good thing to do; you get to know yourself, and I think that’s the most important thing in the whole world.
Robert Paul Smith
I’ve often been with someone and wished I was alone. I’ve never been alone and wished I was not.
Derek Sivers
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
Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.
Paul Tillich
We hope these solitude quotes helped you see how a little seclusion is beneficial to the mind and spirit.
Solitude is the appreciation of the the benefits of isolation, however long, and the understanding that it brings new perspective and understanding.
Being comfortable with being alone is the first step to overcoming loneliness and feeling secure in yourself. So write down a few of these quotes about solitude and enjoy some time to yourself soon.