Solitude

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To Be Alone (1)

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being ...
To the Lighthouse

Alone We Are (2)

Yes, alone we are, deeply alone, and always, in store for us, a layer of loneliness even deeper. There is nothing we can do to dispose of that. No, loneliness shouldn�t surprise us, as astonishing to...
American Pastoral

To Be a Bachelor (3)

It seems so dreadful to be a bachelor, to become an old man struggling to keep one's dignity while begging for an invitation whenever one wants to spend an evening in company, having to carry one's m...
Diaries

To See the World Shine (4)

I had grown accustomed to living within myself. I was resigned to the knowledge that I had lost all appreciation of the outside world, that the loss of its bright colors was an inseparable part of th...
Demian

To Be by Myself (5)

I�m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I�m the type of person who doesn�t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, ...
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Life Is Loneliness (6)

God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to...
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I Never Trusted Myself Alone (7)

I became a man of the crowd. I never trusted myself alone. From night unto morn, and from morn unto night I elbowed speedily through crowds, clinging affrightedly to whom I could. Many thought me a t...

The Importance of Being Alone (8)

To be alone is a natural need, just like drinking and eating; otherwise, with this communism forced on him, man comes to hate mankind. The company of men becomes poison and contamination, and it was ...

It is Wholesome to be Alone (9)

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. I never found the companion that was so co...

Great Things Through Solitude (10)

A man who strives after great things, looks upon every one whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and hindrance - or as a temporary resting-place. His peculiar lofty <...
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