What a commentary on civilization, when being alone is being suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it – like a secret vice.  ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.  ~Marcus Aurelius

Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.  ~Harold Bloom

I am alone in the world, and yet not alone enough
to make every hour holy…
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours (Das Stunden-Buch), translated from German

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 in Newsday

A large, still book is a piece of quietness, succulent and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with "a sort of greedy enjoyment," as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was "saturated with the bouquet of silence."  ~Holbrook JacksonDR

Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.  ~Paul TillichCUL

For those uneasy with the world, solitude is the only guarantee of confidence. ~Terri Guillemets

No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.  ~Jack KerouacCUL

In solitude, where we are least alone.  ~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s PilgrimageBMC

Solitude shows us what should be; society shows us what we are.  ~Robert Cecil

By all means use sometimes to be alone.  Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear.  ~George HerbertClV

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least – and it is commonly more than that – sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.  ~Henry David ThoreauCCQ

There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.  ~Colette

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.  We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.  ~Henry David Thoreau, "Solitude," Walden, 1854

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you…. In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.  ~Ruth Stout

It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.  ~K.T. Jong

I owe my solitude to other people.  ~Alan WattsFD

I’m not anti-social.  I’m pro-solitude.  ~Author Unknown

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.  ~VoltaireCUL

When the superficial wearies me, it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest.  ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin