These loneliness quotes can help you find inner peace when you really need it—and remind you that you're not alone
46 Loneliness Quotes That Will Make You Feel Seen
Updated on Nov. 26, 2024
We all get a little lonely sometimes. While we might feel completely alone in those moments and like no one else can understand, that’s the furthest thing from the truth. These loneliness quotes prove that we’re never truly alone in those feelings, and that knowledge can be life-changing. And hey, being lonely isn’t always a bad thing, as it allows us to connect with ourselves on a deeper level, which can be uplifting. Read on for some quotations on loneliness and more proof that you’re not alone.
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Quotes that express loneliness
1. “The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.” —Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
2. “Ah, look at all the lonely people.” —The Beatles
3. “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
4. “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” —Maya Angelou
5. “Alone is a fact, a condition where no one else is around. Lonely is how you feel about that.”—Twyla Tharp
6. “Sometimes you need to be alone. Not to be lonely, but to enjoy your free time being yourself.” —Anonymous
7. “Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.” —Arthur Schopenhauer
8. “Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.” —Pearl Buck
9. “What a lovely surprise to discover how unlonely being alone can be.” —Ellen Burstyn
10. “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
11. “Solitude is not the absence of Love, but its complement. 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…” —Paul Coelho
12. “Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s 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.” —Pau Tillich
13. “No matter how lonely you get or how many birth announcements you receive, the trick is not to get frightened. There’s nothing wrong with being alone.” —Wendy Wassertein
14. “The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which makes you lonely.” —Lorraine Hansberry
15. “Loneliness, far from revealing some defect, is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.” —Martha Beck
16. “After all, human beings are like that. When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone.” —Gertrude Stein
17. “I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”—Henry David Thoreau
18. “I think it’s very important to be alone. Loneliness is just an idea that, I’m afraid, has something to do with self-pity.” —Helen Hayes
19. “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
Quotes about overcoming loneliness
20. “Loneliness is but a cutting adrift from our moorings and floating out to the open sea; an opportunity for finding ourselves, our real selves, what we are about, where we are heading during our little time on this beautiful earth.” —Anne Shannon Monroe
21. “The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.” —Douglas Coupland
22. “A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.” —Mandy Hale
23. “Sometimes you have to stand alone just to make sure you still can.” —Anonymous
24. “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
25. “Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.” —Thomas Wolfe
26. “Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches; Yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth”—Kahlil Gibran
27. “In the solitude of your dreams grows the flame that will bring the light to this world.” —Unknown
28. “The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.” —Mitch Albom
29. “Cultivate solitude and quiet and a few sincere friends, rather than mob merriment, noise, and thousands of nodding acquaintances.” —William Powell
30. “Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.”—Cheryl Strayed
31. “You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone.” —Amit Ray
32. “Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.” —Paul Tillich
Quotes about being strong alone
33. “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” —Michel de Montaigne
34. “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.” —Bobcat Goldthwait
35. “All great and precious things are lonely.” —John Steinbeck
36. “Sometimes, you just need a break. In a beautiful place. Alone. To figure everything out.” —Anonymous
37. “A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom.” —Michel de Montaigne
38. “Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.”—May Sarton
39. “Being alone and actually sitting with our own thoughts can lead to such growth and realizations that are rare in our everyday busy lives.” —Kourtney Kardashian
40. “The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.” —Francis Phillip Wernig
41. “By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear.” —George Herbert
42. “Even when I’m alone, I have real good company – dreams and imaginations and pretendings.” —L.M. Montgomery
43. “I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.” —Olivia Wilde
44. “The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.” —William Orville Douglas
45. “A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.” —Bertrand Russell
46. “I will fill myself with the desert and the sky. I will be stone and stars, unchanging and strong and safe. The desert is complete; it is spare and alone, but perfect in its solitude. I will be the desert.” —Kiersten White
Why trust us
At Reader’s Digest, we’ve been sharing our favorite quotes for over 100 years. The sayings and quips that appear in the magazine’s “Quotable Quotes” (formerly “Remarkable Remarks”) are curated from interviews and essays originally published in the magazine, reprints from trusted titles and other verified sources. For this piece, Emma Taubenfeld tapped her experiences as a reporter and journalist for Reader’s Digest to ensure that all information is accurate. We’ve gone the extra step and had Sharon Boone, a fact-checker with 20-plus years of experience researching for national publications including Glamour, Seventeen, Essence, AARP and more, verify that all quotes are attributed correctly and have credible sourcing. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
