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Aloneness Quotes

    “Many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”

    bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

      “I told everyone I was fine, when in fact I needed the privacy to fall apart.”

      Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms (Page 270)

        “It’s better to be alone than to spend time with toxic people. It’s better to do nothing than to work on something that doesn’t matter. It’s better to rest than to climb the wrong mountain.”

        James Clear, Blog

          “A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone.”

          Jonathan Swift, via Sunbeams (Page 93)

            “Yes, I felt closer to my fellow men, too, even in my solitude. For it is not physical solitude that actually separates one from other men, not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation. It is not the desert island nor the stony wilderness that cuts you from the people you love. It is the wilderness in the mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others, too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. How often in a large city, shaking hands with my friends, I have felt the wilderness stretching between us. Both of us were wandering in arid wastes, having lost the springs that nourished us—or having found them dry. Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.”

            Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift From The Sea, via Sunbeams (Page 89)

              “Just remember, we’re all in this alone.”

              Lily Tomlin, via Sunbeams (Page 83)

                “At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self.”

                Brendan Francis, via Sunbeams (Page 65)

                  “If we all feel that we are alone, how alone are we? If we all feel worthless then who is the currency of our worth being measured against? Perhaps this program is a personal and social tool that illuminates the truth that religious people have long known and physicists have proven: all the energy that has ever existed has always existed and will always exist. Form and separation are temporary. We are all one.”

                  Russell Brand, Recovery (Page 94)

                    “You try being alone, without any form of distraction, and you will see how quickly you want to get away from yourself and forget what you are. That is why this enormous structure of professional amusement, of automated distraction, is so prominent a part of what we call civilization. If you observe, you will see that people the world over are becoming more and more distracted, increasingly sophisticated and worldly. The multiplication of pleasures, the innumerable books that are being published, the newspaper pages filled with sporting events—surely, all these indicate that we constantly want to be amused. Because we are inwardly empty, dull, mediocre, we use our relationships and our social reforms as a means of escaping from ourselves. I wonder if you have noticed how lonely most people are? And to escape from loneliness we run to temples, churches, or mosques, we dress up and attend social functions, we watch television, listen to the radio, read, and so on… If you inquire a little into boredom you will find that the cause of it is loneliness. It is in order to escape from loneliness that we want to be together, we want to be entertained, to have distractions of every kind: gurus, religious ceremonies, prayers, or the latest novel. Being inwardly lonely we become mere spectators in life; and we can be the players only when we understand loneliness and go beyond it… because beyond it lies the real treasure.”

                    J. Krishnamurti, Think On These Things, via Sunbeams (Page 3)

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