115 Quotes About Being Lonely and How to Cope With it
As humans we are hardwired for social interaction and relationships, however we all feel lonely sometimes for many different reasons or due to life changes that make fostering relationships harder. For example, while in the past communities were tighter and more stable, in our fast paced world characterized by high mobility for reasons or work or study, it is increasing difficult to build up our social network. On the other hand, although life changes can lead to isolation sometimes we may choose to be alone and feel quite content without too much contact with other people.
Feeling lonely is quite normal. It is possible to feel lonely even when you are in a room full of people or with your family, when you can’t feel connected with anyone or that no one understands or cares for you. So, although being alone is not easy, it is better than being surrounded by people you cannot connect with or trying to blend into a world that disappoints you.
In fact, in our hyper scheduled and full of distractions world, taking some time alone can have a number of benefits and tremendous opportunities for personal growth. When alone, you get a chance to unwind and recharge, to get more things done, to let your imagination go wild and become more creative, but above all you have time for self-reflection, deep thinking and discovering yourself!
Here we have collected for you the most inspirational quotes about being lonely and how to cope with it. Share them with loved ones and friends to encourage and support them! Bookmark them as your daily dose of positive influence and quickening! Reflect upon them to reframe your perspective, embrace yourself and get the most out of life!
Table of Contents
- Quotes About The Creative Power of Being Alone
- Relatable & Short Feeling Lonely Quotes
- In a Relationship, Yet Lonely Quotes
- Quotes to Inspire and Support a Friend When They Feel Lonely
- Insightful Quotes About Feeling Lonely
- Quotes About Being Alone by Famous People
- Literature Quotes About Being Lonely
- Funny Lonely Quotes To Add Some Humor to an Otherwise Uneasy Feeling
Quotes About The Creative Power of Being Alone
Spending some time alone, away from distractions of everyday life will allow you to know yourself better, tap into your hidden potential and unleash your creative power. No wonder, some of the world’s greatest minds flourished in solitude and silence!
- All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. Blaise Pascal
- Sometimes, you need to be alone. Not to be lonely, but to enjoy your free time being yourself. Unknown
- It’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone. Mahatma Gandhi
- A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone. Mandy Hale
- The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which makes you lonely. Lorraine Hansberry
- The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself. Michel de Montaigne
- Loneliness is a tax we have to pay to atone for a certain complexity of mind. Alain de Botton
- Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better. Henry Rollins
- I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. Rainer Maria Rilke
- Time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, meditation, resolves the unresolved and takes us from mentally fat to fit. Naval Ravikant
- What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be. Ellen Burstyn
- The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone. Henrik Ibsen
- Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Janet Fitch
- I restore myself when I’m alone. Marilyn Monroe
- I’m not much but I’m all I have. Philip K Dick
- Be good and you will be lonesome. Mark Twain
- 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
- If you are alone, you belong entirely to yourself. If you are accompanied by even one companion, you belong only half to yourself or even less in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct, and if you have more than one companion, you will fall more deeply into the same plight. Leonardo da Vinci
- Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone. Rollo May
- If you smile when you are alone then you really mean it. Andy Rooney
- Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world. Orison Swett Marden
- There is nothing outside of yourself, look within. Everything you want is there – you are That. Rumi
- No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Buddha
Relatable & Short Feeling Lonely Quotes
A list of short one-liner quotes to caption your Instagram and social media posts in order to capture the attention of your audience and connect with other people who can relate to the feeling of loneliness!
- There’s nothing abnormal about loneliness. Paula Stokes
- We feel alone, and in this we are connected. Leo Babauta
- Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony. Douglas Coupland
- The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone. Mitch Albom
- Loneliness is not lack of company, loneliness is lack of purpose. Guillermo Maldonado
- What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. Kurt Vonnegut
- The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. Mother Teresa
- My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it. Ursula K. Le Guin
- All great and precious things are lonely. John Steinbeck, East of Eden
- Deep down, the young are lonelier than the old. Anne Frank
- Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self. May Sarton
- A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship. J. R. R. Tolkien
- I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone. Audrey Hepburn
- We live as we dream–alone…. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
- She understood how a world jammed with phones, email, and faxes could still leave you feeling utterly alone. Jodi Picoult
- How we need another soul to cling to. Sylvia Plath
- Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with. Wayne Dyer
- It’s weird to feel like you miss someone you’re not even sure you know. David Foster Wallace
- Lonely is not being alone, it’s the feeling that no one cares. Unknown
- You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone. Amit Ray
- Being alone is very difficult. Yoko Ono
- Words are loneliness. Henry Miller
- By all means use sometimes to be alone. Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear. George Herbert
- I think it’s good for a person to spend time alone. It gives them an opportunity to discover who they are and to figure out why they are always alone. Amy Sedaris
- Find company within yourself and you’ll never spend a day alone. Find love within yourself and you’ll never have a lonely day. Connor Chalfant
- Being alone has a power that very few people can handle. Steven Aitchison
- Either give me more wine or leave me alone. Rumi
- If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. Henry David Thoreau
In a Relationship, Yet Lonely Quotes
There is no worst feeling than being in a relationship with people that make you feel all alone! Although the physical presence may provide some consolation, it is the mental connection that is the essence we all crave for in a relationship!
- 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. Robin Williams
- There are worse things than feeling alone. Things like being with someone and still feeling alone. M.W Poetry
- Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love. Gabriel García Márquez
- Sometimes, you just need a break. In a beautiful place. Alone. To figure everything out. Unknown
- That’s love: Two lonely persons keep each other safe and touch each other and talk to each other. Rainer Maria Rilke
- I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps and others emphasize my loneliness. Anaïs Nin
- Your life will get better when you realize it’s better to be alone than to chase people who don’t really care about you. Thema Davis
- No, I may not be physically alone. But mentally there is no one in sight. Unknown
- We’re all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding. Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed
- And if you couldn’t be loved, the next best thing was to be let alone. L.M. Montgomery
- We don’t need sugar, flour or rice or anything else. We just want to see our dear ones. Hafiz of Persia
Quotes to Inspire and Support a Friend When They Feel Lonely
A hand-picked collection of quotes to support and encourage a friend who feels lonely and needs a confidence boost in order to cope with the situation!
- The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
- 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
- Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact. Martha Beck
- Don’t feel alone, because there is always someone out there who loves you more than you can imagine. Anurag Prakash Ray
- Remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. Epictetus
- It’s only natural to feel lonely after the enjoyable moments pass. But as you experience new joys those feelings of sorrow will start to fade. Mizu Sahara
- I had already found that it was not good to be alone, and so made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self; but my books were always my friends, let fail all else. Joshua Slocum
- The price of being a sheep is boredom. The price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care. Hugh MacLeod
- Sometimes you need to take a break from everyone and spend time alone to experience, appreciate, and love yourself. Robert Tew
- If you want to be happy, learn to be alone without being lonely. Learn that being alone does not mean being unhappy. The world is full of plenty of interesting and enjoyable things to do and people who can enrich your life. Michael Josephson
- The best part about being alone is that you really don’t have to answer to anybody. You do what you want. Justin Timberlake
Insightful Quotes About Feeling Lonely
Succinct nuggets of wisdom that have the power to transform your perspective and empower you with positive energy to conquer loneliness!
- Being alone with your feelings is the worst because you have nowhere to run. They’re here, dancing in your mind, and all you can do is handle. Aisha Sherly
- Nobody likes being alone that much. I don’t go out of my way to make friends, that’s all. It just leads to disappointment. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
- When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that. Gertrude Stein
- There are some places in life where you can only go alone. Embrace the beauty of your solo journey. Mandy Hale
- I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone. Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
- I’ll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does. Henry Rollins
- To live alone is the fate of all great souls. Arthur Schopenhauer
- The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend! Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
Quotes About Being Alone by Famous People
These enlightening quotes by some of the world’s greatest minds will trigger positive thinking and provide direction and guidance, allowing you to acknowledge your feelings and appreciate yourself!
- We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for a moment that we’re not alone. Orson Welles
- A great fire burns within me, but no one stops to warm themselves at it, and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke. Vincent Van Gogh
- When you’re surrounded by all these people, it can be lonelier than when you’re by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don’t feel like you can trust anyone or talk to anybody, you feel like you’re really alone. Fiona Apple
- Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. Maya Angelou
- Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. That thing that I’m most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me. Anne Hathaway
- When you have nobody you can make a cup of tea for, when nobody needs you, that’s when I think life is over. Audrey Hepburn
- Some people can’t stand being alone. I love solitude and silence. But when I come out of it, I’m a regular talking machine. It’s all or nothing for me. Celine Dion
- Although I am a typical loner in my daily life, my awareness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has prevented me from feelings of isolation. Albert Einstein
- It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely. Albert Einstein
- I love to be alone. I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. Henry David Thoreau
Literature Quotes About Being Lonely
Whenever you need to surround yourself with positive influence, the following quotes taken from the works of famous authors will provide invaluable insight and inspire hope!
- If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
- 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, My Sister’s Keeper
- The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly. F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Τhere is a loneliness in this world so great that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock. Charles Bukowski, Love Is a Dog from Hell
- Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other. John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
- Being alone never felt right. sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right. Charles Bukowski, Women
- She was stronger alone… Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
- The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely. Charlotte Brontë
- To forget a friend is sad. Not everyone has had a friend. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
- When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives. George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
- When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone. Tennessee Williams, Camino Real
- My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues. Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam
- I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others–young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
- Solitude is indeed dangerous for a working intelligence. We need to have around us people who think and speak. When we are alone for a long time we people the void with phantoms. Guy de Maupassant
- They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
Robert Frost - Μay came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
E.E. Cummings - The strength of a love is always misjudged if we evaluate it by its immediate cause and not the stress that went before it, the dark and hollow space full of disappointment and loneliness that precedes all the great events in the heart’s history. Stefan Zweig, The Burning Secret and other stories
- It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one’s germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness! Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept
Funny Lonely Quotes To Add Some Humor to an Otherwise Uneasy Feeling
A collection of mood enhancing, funny and witty quotes that will help you loosen up, relax and start your day with a big smile!
- If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company. Jean-Paul Sartre
- Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering, and it’s all over much too soon. Woody Allen
- Solitude is fine but you need someone to tell that solitude is fine. Honoré de Balzac
- If you are afraid of being lonely don’t try to be right. Jules Renard
As a social species we crave for meaningful social contact and connection since they are vital for our happiness and well-being. However, when our social interaction needs are not met, blending in can lead to disappointment and loneliness, and this can be a trigger to get disconnected from the world and get some time alone to reboot and reflect on ourselves. Add some solitude to your life, it will help you discover and appreciate who you truly are!
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