Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of 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.

Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice aware of the fullness of your won presence rather than of the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.

Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude and the society of thyself.

Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone.

Alone let him constantly meditate in solitude on that which is salutary for his soul for he who meditates in solitude attains supreme bliss.

It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.

I have never found a 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. A man thinking or working is always alone let him be where he will.

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

Language... 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.