101 Loneliness Quotes to Inspire, Commiserate, and Uplift

In the vast tapestry of human emotions, few experiences are as universally felt and yet profoundly isolating as loneliness. Whether by choice or circumstance, the feeling of being disconnected from others can weigh heavily on our hearts, leaving us yearning for solace and understanding. Throughout history, writers, poets, philosophers, and artists have endeavored to capture the essence of this intricate emotion through their poignant words. Today, we delve into the realm of loneliness quotes, illuminating the beauty, anguish, and resilience that can be found within their depths.

Loneliness, often misunderstood as mere solitude, encompasses a complex amalgamation of emotions. It is an emotional landscape where individuals grapple with the longing for companionship, the ache of unfulfilled connections, and the haunting silence that reverberates within. While loneliness can be an uncomfortable state of being, it also holds transformative potential, encouraging introspection, self-discovery, and the development of inner strength.

Whether it is the melancholic prose of a poet baring their soul, the introspective musings of a philosopher grappling with existential questions, or the poignant observations of a novelist crafting characters burdened by their own isolation, loneliness quotes invite us to confront our own emotions and forge a deeper understanding of the human condition. They remind us that in our moments of solitude, we are not alone and that there is solace to be found in shared experiences and the profound empathy that can arise from them.

Through this exploration of loneliness quotes, we embark on a journey of self-reflection, empathy, and healing. We invite you to join us as we delve into the intricate tapestry of human emotions, and through the words of those who have walked the path of loneliness before us, find the courage to embrace our own vulnerabilities and discover the transformative power that lies within our hearts.

I hope you enjoy these loneliness quotes…

1) “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

2) “There’s nothing abnormal about loneliness.” – Paula Stokes

3) “Loneliness is about perceiving that no one is there for you. But solitude is about making a choice to be alone with your thoughts.” – Amy Morin

Loneliness Quotes by Henry Rollins

4) “Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” – Henry Rollins

5) “I’ll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does.” – Henry Rollins

6) “Ah, look at all the lonely people.” – The Beatles

7) “All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.” – Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

8) “If you are alone, you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion, you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct, and if you have more than one companion, you will fall more deeply into the same plight.” – Leonardo da Vinci

9) “I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it’s good for me.” – Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

Loneliness is an integral part of the human condition…

10) “Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.” – Thomas Wolfe

11) “We are all born alone and die alone. The loneliness is definitely part of the journey of life.” – Jenova Chen

Loneliness Quotes by Mother Teresa

12) “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” – Mother Teresa

13) “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.” – Mother Teresa

14) “We are living in dystopia, in a world that is dominated by technology and disconnect, alienation, loneliness, and dysfunction.” – Steven Wilson

15) “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.” – Albert Einstein

16) “Because, once alone, it is impossible to believe that one could ever have been otherwise. Loneliness is an absolute discovery.” – Marilynne Robinson

17) “Cinema can fill in the empty spaces of your life and your loneliness.” – Pedro Almodovar

18) “If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

19) “The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.” – Norman Cousins

The pain of being alone…

20) “Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.” – Paul Tillich

21) “For fear you will be alone, you do so many things that aren’t you at all.” – Richard Brautigan

22) “Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

23) “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” – Michel de Montaigne

24) “I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.” – Frank Kafka

25) “Sometimes you have to stand alone just to make sure you still can.” – Anonymous

26) “I’m here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it—I will love you through that, as well. If you don’t need the medication, I will love you, too. There’s nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

27) “A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

28) “I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” – Hunter S. Thompson

29) “Let me tell you this: If you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. It’s because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” – Jodi Picoult

A moment of solitude is good for the soul…

30) “In solitude, the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.” – Laurence Sterne

31) “Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.” – Pearl Buck

32) “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.” – May Sarton

33) “It is better to be lonely than allow people who are not going anywhere keep you from your destiny.” – Joel Osteen

34) “It wasn’t just that she missed her friends; she was starting to wonder if she needed them around to feel like she existed at all.” – Ann Brashares, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

35) “Keep in mind that to avoid loneliness, many people need both a social circle and an intimate attachment. Having just one of two may still leave you feeling lonely.” – Gretchen Rubin

36) “Leave my loneliness unbroken.” – Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

37) “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering, and it’s all over much too soon.” – Woody Allen

38) “We live in such a lonely world because most days we wake up and decide to marry no one but ourselves.” – Christopher Poindexter

39) “Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. That thing that I’m most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me.” – Anne Hathaway

Loneliness Quotes by F. Scott Fitzgerald

40) “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

41) “I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others–young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

42) “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

43) “Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” – C. S. Lewis

44) “Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.” – Bertrand Russell

45) “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

46) “Men subjected to dehumanizing treatment experience profound wretchedness and loneliness and find that hope is almost impossible to retain.” – Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

47) “Loneliness might be taking you towards an otherwise unreachable experience of reality.” – Olivia Laing

48) “Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate.” – Germaine Greer

49) “I’m not much but I’m all I have.” – Philip K. Dick

Music as a refuge…

50) “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” – Maya Angelou

51) “My momma and poppa appeared from the shadows. They flew to me and wrapped their arms around me and cooled my face with their ghost tears.” – Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains

52) “Sometimes you need to be alone. Not to be lonely, but to enjoy your free time being yourself.” – Anonymous

53) “You never walk alone. Even the devil is the lord of flies.” – Gilles Deleuze

54) “There is no loneliness like that of a failed marriage.” – Alexander Theroux

55) “Loneliness is not lack of company, loneliness is lack of purpose.” – Guillermo Maldonado

56) “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

57) “Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth!” – Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

58) “You’re only lonely if you’re not there for you.” – Phil McGraw

59) “Over time, loneliness gets inside you and doesn’t go away.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafón

60) “People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don’t think that’s true. Being surrounded by the wrong people is the loneliest thing in the world.” – Kim Culbertson

61) “Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.” – Dag Hammarskjold

62) “Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.” – Martha Beck

63) “Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.” – Douglas Coupland, Shampoo Planet

Loneliness Quotes by Mandy Hale

64) “A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.” – Mandy Hale

65) “If you learn to really sit with loneliness and embrace it for the gift that it is…an opportunity to get to know you, to learn how strong you really are, to depend on no one but you for your happiness… you will realize that a little loneliness goes a long way in creating a richer, deeper, more vibrant and colorful you.” – Mandy Hale

66) “Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.” – Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey

67) “When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.” – George R.R. Martin

68) “There never can be a man so lost as one who is lost in the vast and intricate corridors of his own lonely mind, where none may reach and none may save.” – Isaac Asimov

69) “I’m lonely. And I’m lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the shit out of me to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic.” – Augusten Burroughs

Loneliness quotes for the person you can depend on…

70) “Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine.” – Honoré de Balzac

71) “Sometimes being surrounded by everyone is the loneliest, because you’ll realize you have no one to turn to.” – Unknown

72) “The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

73) “There’s a special quality to the loneliness of dusk, a melancholy more brooding even than the night’s.” – Ed Gorman

74) “The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.” – Henrik Ibsen

75) “Loneliness is such an omnipotent and painful threat to many persons that they have little conception of the positive values of solitude and even, at times, are frightened at the prospect of being alone.” – Rollo May

76) “To be alone is to be different, to be different is to be alone.” – Suzanne Gordon

77) “Sometimes you need to take a break from everyone and spend time alone to experience, appreciate, and love yourself.” – Robert Tew

78) “The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which makes you lonely.” – Lorraine Hansberry

79) “There is nothing outside of yourself. Look within. Everything you want is there.” – Rumi

Find some comfort with loneliness quotes…

80) “This world that I live in is empty and cold/the loneliness cuts me and tortures my soul.” – Waylon Jennings

81) “The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.” – Douglas Coupland

82) “We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.” – Albert Schweitzer

83) “Too much self-centered attitude, you see, brings, you see, isolation. Result: loneliness, fear, anger. The extreme self-centered attitude is the source of suffering.” – Dalai Lama

84) “The tragedy of this world is that everyone is alone. For a life in the past cannot be shared with the present.” – Alan Lightman

85) “The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.” – Charlotte Brontë

86) “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” – Arthur C. Clarke

87) “I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel all alone.” – Robin Williams

88) “Loneliness is the ultimate poverty.” – Pauline Phillips

89) “I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Loneliness quotes when you feel alone…

90) “Lonely was much better than alone.” – Toni Morrison

91) “We feel alone, and in this, we are connected.” – Leo Babauta

92) “What a lovely surprise to discover how unlonely being alone can be.” – Ellen Burstyn

93) “When we are most alone is when we embrace another’s loneliness.” – Mitch Albom

94) “Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.” – Edna St. Vincent Millay

Loneliness Quotes by Haruki Murakami

95) “Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?” – Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

96) “Nobody likes being alone that much. I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment.” – Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

97) “There are worse things than feeling alone. Things like being with someone and still feeling alone.” – M.W Poetry

98) “The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.” – Lois Lowry, The Giver

99) “Yes, there is joy, fulfillment, and companionship, but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.” – Sylvia Plath

100) “Yet even in the loneliness of the canyon I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as “our brothers’ keepers,” possessed of one of the oldest and possibly one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting of instincts. It will not let us go.” – Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

101) “The loneliness you feel is actually an opportunity to reconnect with others and yourself.” – Maxime Lagacé

Please share these loneliness quotes with your friends and family.

Last update on 2024-06-25 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

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