there was just the fact that I was alone, literally alone, and drew no pleasure from solitude or from the free working of my mind;
Serotonin: A Novel
Michel Houellebecq
Author: SO GOOD QUOTES
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My need for social relationships (if by that we mean relationships other than romantic relationships), which started very weak, had declined to nothing over the years. Was that normal? It’s true that humanity’s unpalatable ancestors lived in tribes of a few dozen individuals, about the size of a hamlet, and that that formula pertained for a long time–both among hunter-gatherers and among the first farming populations. But time had moved on since then; there had been the invention of the city and its natural corollary–loneliness.
Serotonin: A Novel
Michel Houellebecq -
Let me tell you this: 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 -
“It is better to suffer from loneliness than to suffer from sin.”
—H.E. Metropolitan Youssef -
“He [Walter Benjamin] both craved solitude and complained of loneliness; he often sought community, sometimes working to create it himself, but was just as often loath to commit himself to any group…………
He renounced comfort, security, and honors in order to maintain intellectual freedom and the time and space to read, think and write.”
― Howard Eiland, Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life
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Solitude appeared to me as the only fit state of man.
―Walter Benjamin -
Unlike solitude, loneliness is not merely the experience of aloneness. It is a feeling of a gap between oneself and others, the perception of an active, living, aching separation that the lonely person wishes were otherwise.
Struth’s unpeopled photos evoke the loneliness of urban life -
I am speaking of the selfishness of good people, devout people, those who have succeeded through spiritual exercises and self-denial in being able to make the proud profession before the altar of the Most High, “Lord, I am not like the rest of men.” Yes, we have had the audacity at certain times of our lives to believe we are different from other men. And here is the deepest form of self-deception, dictated by self-centeredness at its worst: spiritual egotism. This most insidious form of egotism even uses piety and prayer for its own gain.
…
There is no limit to such self-deception. And the path, once entered upon, is so slippery that God has to treat us harshly to bring us back to our senses. But there is no other way of opening our eyes. It has to be painful. But often it isn’t enough. Disaster, illness, disappointment hover like birds of prey over the poor carcass that had the temerity to say, “Lord, I am not like the rest of men.” How can we possibly entertain the idea that we are different from other men, when we shout, cry, feel afraid, lack determination, and behave atrociously just like everybody else?
Letters from the Desert
by Carlo Carretto
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An intelligent person might feel lonely… or tend to be lonely…
Maybe because he does not benefit much from people… or because he does not like the way they act… or does not find a match to his friendship.
The philosopher Diogenes is a clear example: he was seen carrying a lamp during the daytime, and when asked the reason, he said, “I am searching for a person!”
Thus an intelligent person could fall in pride too…
Either due to his continual success, or by people’s talk about his brilliant deeds, or feeling superior when compared to others… Generally, the virtue of humility on the part of those who are intelligent needs a greater effort…
Here, someone might ask this intelligent question: why doesn’t the intelligent person discover these faults, through his intelligence, and avoid them?
The answer is that he might discover his faults, but to avoid them is another point. There is a difference between the intellectual and spiritual, between the mind and soul.
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Words of Spiritual Benefit Vol. 1
SO GOOD QUOTES 