Solitary Quotes - Page 16

• To garden is a solitary act.

  Michelle Cliff

  Garden, Gardening

  Michelle Cliff (1980). “Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise”

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• the whistle of the old steam trains ... could conjure up visions of bleak distances with one solitary wail.

  M.C. Beaton

  Distance, Vision, Sound

  M. C. Beaton (2016). “Introducing Hamish Macbeth: Mysteries #1-3: Death of a Gossip, Death of a Cad, and Death of an Outsider Omnibus”, p.293, Hachette UK

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• It is possible to be solitary in one's mind while living in a crowd, and it is possible for one who is solitary to live in the crowd of his own thoughts.

  Syncletica of Alexandria

  Mind, Crowds

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• All solitary enjoyments, quickly fall, or become painful, so that, perhaps, no more insufferable misery can be conceived than that which must follow incommunicable privileges. Only imagine a human being condemned to perpetual youth while all around him decay and die. O, how sincerely would he call upon death for deliverance!

  James Sharp

  Fall, Decay, Privilege

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• The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Solitude, Miserable

  Samuel Johnson, Abraham Raimbach, Robert Smirke (1819). “Rasselas”, p.85

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• Our grandsire, Adam, ere of Eve possesst,
  Alone, and e'en in Paradise unblest,
  With mournful looks the blissful scenes survey'd,
  And wander'd in the solitary shade.
  The Maker say, took pity, and bestow'd
  Woman, the last, the best reserv'd of God.

  Alexander Pope

  Women, Shade, Lasts

  Alexander Pope, Alexander Dyce (1851). “The poetical works of Alexander Pope”, p.255

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• Life is not a solitary activity. Live well by living for others.

  Ron Kaufman

  Service Culture, Life Is, Live Well

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• Within minutes my 115-mile walk through the desert hills becomes a thing apart, a disjunct reality on the far side of a bottomless abyss, immediately beyond physical recollection.But it's all still there in my heart and soul. The walk, the hills, the sky, the solitary pain and pleasure-they will grow larger, sweeter, lovelier in the days to come, like a treasure found and then, voluntarily, surrendered. Returned to the mountains with my blessing. It leaves a golden glowing on the mind.

  Edward Abbey

  Pain, Heart, Blessing

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• I would say to today's young minister, 'Be not afraid to give much time to solitary walks and meditation'.

  Vance Havner

  Giving, Meditation, Today

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• Never befuddle a solitary thrashing with a last annihilation.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Lasts, Annihilation

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• A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

  Bill Gates

  Writing, Doors, Creating

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• The saddest human experience is to view alone the scenes one has viewed through other eyes - to walk solitary where one has walked in company - to have its particular barbed shaft aimed at one from every stick and stone that mark familiar ways.

  Katherine Cecil Thurston

  Eye, Views, Stones

  Katherine Cecil Thurston (2012). “Max”, p.316, tredition

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• Stand-up is a very scary, very solitary profession, but you have to experience it to figure out if it's right for you.

  Doug Benson

  Scary, Experience, Figures

  "Comedy: The blunt Doug Benson". Interview with Brent Owen, www.leoweekly.com. August 28, 2013.

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• Human beings are born solitary, but everywhere they are in chains - daisy chains - of interactivity. Social actions are makeshift forms, often courageous, sometimes ridiculous, always strange. And in a way, every social action is a negotiation, a compromise between 'his,' 'her' or 'their' wish and yours.

  Andy Warhol

  Wish, Way, Action

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• Incessant company is as bad as solitary confinement.

  Virginia Woolf

  Incessant, Confinement, Company

  Virginia Woolf (2003). “A Writer's Diary”, p.341, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• To most observers, innovation is a solitary process that requires creativity and genius, perhaps even greatness. It can't, in their view, be managed or predicted, just hoped for and, perhaps, facilitated. But for me innovation was and still is more than that. It was a battle in the marketplace between innovators or attackers trying to make money by changing the order of things, and defenders protecting their cash flow.

  Richard J. Foster

  Creativity, Greatness, Cash Flow

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• It's clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty bumming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together. Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies by celestial reckoning, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another.

  Robert James Waller

  Moving, Ignorance, Years

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• Only in the sacredness of inward silence does the soul truly meet the secret, hiding God. The strength of resolve, which afterward shapes life, and mixes itself with action, is the fruit of those sacred, solitary moments. There is a divine depth in silence. We meet God alone.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Silence, Soul, Secret

  Frederick William Robertson (1857). “Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton: Second Series”, p.54

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• Satan has his companions, fellow-devils, to admire and encourage him; but I am solitary and detested.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Devil, Satan, Admire

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Susan J. Wolfson, Ronald Levao (2012). “The Annotated Frankenstein”, p.210, Harvard University Press

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• Be not solitary, be not idle

  Robert Burton

  Idle

  The Anatomy of Melancholy pt. 3, sec. 4 (1621 - 1651) See Samuel Johnson 97

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• With one long breath, caught and held in his chest, he fought his sadness over his solitary life. Don't cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don't poison everything.

  Saul Bellow

  Sadness, Solitary Life, Long

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• There's a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I'm guessing that once you've discovered this distinction you can't go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.

  Tiffanie DeBartolo

  Lonely, Emotional, Differences

  Tiffanie DeBartolo (2005). “How to Kill a Rock Star”, p.80, Sourcebooks, Inc.

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• I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it's easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin' man and the loner.

  Steve Martin

  Men, Thinking, Ideas

  "All about my father". Interview with Emma Brockes, www.theguardian.com. November 10, 2007.

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• Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?

  William Butler Yeats

  Simple, Men, Fire

  "No Second Troy" l. 11 (1910)

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• When you've written a movie, you then get together with a whole lot of people and make it. In many ways, I think it is far nicer to be with people rather than being completely solitary.

  Neil Jordan

  Thinking, People, Together

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