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Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,
But God to man doth speak in solitude.
Author: John Stuart Blackie
Source: Sonnet--Highland Solitude
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I am as one who is left alone at a banquet, the lights dead and
the flowers faded.
Author: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Source: The Last Days of Pompeii (ch. V)
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Alone!--That worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known,
Of hope laid waste, knells in that word--Alone!
Author: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Source: New Timon (pt. II)
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But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto II, st. 26)
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This is to be along; this, this is solitude!
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto II, st. 26)
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Among them, but not of them.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 113)
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In solitude, when we are least alone.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto III, st. 90)
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'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone--man with his God must strive.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 33)
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Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 33)
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That he was never less at leisure than when at leisure: nor that
he was ever less alone than when alone.
[Lat., Nunquam se minus otiosum esse quam cum otiosus; nec minus
solum quam cum solus esset.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Officiis (bk. III, ch. I)
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Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea.
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source: The Ancient Mariner (pt. IV)
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So lonely 'twas that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Source: The Ancient Mariner (pt. VII)
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I praise the Frenchman; his remark was shrewd,--
"How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude."
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper--Solitude is sweet.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Retirement (l. 739), quotation is also attributed to Jean de la Bruyere and to Jean Louis Guez de Ba
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Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,
Of unsuccessful or successful war,
Might never reach me more!
Author: William Cowper
Source: Task (bk. II, l. 1)
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O solitude, where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk
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Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the true
parent of genius. In all ages solitude has been called for--has
been flown to.
Author: Isaac D'Israeli
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. X)
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There is a society in the deepest solitude.
Author: Isaac D'Israeli
Source: Literary Character of Men of Genius (ch. X)
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So vain is the belief
That the sequestered path has fewest flowers.
Author: Thomas Doubleday
Source: Sonnet--The Poet's Solitude
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Thrice happy he, who by some shady grove,
Far from the clamorous world; doth live his own;
Though solitary, who is not alone,
But doth converse with that eternal love.
Author: William Drummond (1)
Source: Urania; or, Spiritual Poems
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We enter the world alone, we leave it alone.
Author: James Anthony Froude
Source: Short Studies on Great Subjects--Sea Studies
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I was never less alone than when by myself.
Author: Edward Gibbon
Source: Memoirs (vol. I, p. 117)
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Whoever gives himself up to solitude,
Ah! he is soon alone.
[Ger., Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergiebt,
Ach! der ist bald allein.]
Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Source: Wilhelm Meister (II, 13)
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Nobody with me at sea but myself.
Author: Oliver Goldsmith
Source: The Haunch of Venison
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Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife.
Author: Thomas Gray
Source: Elegy in a Country Churchyard (st. 19)
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O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,--
Nature's observatory--whence the dell,
In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavilion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
Author: John Keats
Source: Sonnet--O Solitude! If I must With Thee Dwell
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