Last Updated on December 19, 2022
Loneliness is part and parcel of life. We can all recall a time when we snuggled on the couch still and alone, with nobody and nothing to keep our company but the beatings of our hearts. However, while loneliness is a normal part of life, it can oftentimes take a toll on our emotions.
That’s especially if the situation results from having been deserted by people we consider our crucial support system. Indeed, the feelings of loneliness experienced when traveling solo in a faraway country are quite different from those emanating from a relationship breakup.
Therefore, it’s important to arm yourself with motivational loneliness and boredom quotes to help you deal with these difficult emotions. And that’s where we come in. We’ve rounded up 145 incredibly uplifting quotes to keep you strong during times of loneliness.
Our definitive collection of loneliness quotes deals with various aspects of the subject.
First off, you’ll find quotes that emphasize the fact that loneliness isn’t inherently a negative emotion. These loneliness quotes underscore the importance of stepping back from the crowd once in a while to experience moments of self-reflection, perhaps before making a major decision.
Although we’re usually lonely during such times, the feeling is well-justified. Another instance where loneliness is perfectly understandable is during mindful meditation.
While you can meditate in a group, the practice often delivers maximum impact if undertaken alone. Solo meditation allows you to gain higher control of your emotions and tune your mind to a desired object or outcome.
However, feelings of loneliness are not always self-induced. In fact, the contrary is usually the case. We mostly feel lonely because those we love have either inadvertently drifted further from us or intentionally chosen to walk out of our lives.
This form of loneliness can be caused by various events. Common ones include death, job loss, relationship breakup, and betrayal. No matter the cause, a well-thought-out loneliness quote can help you stay positive during moments of loneliness and boredom.
These quotes will serve as a reassurance that you can never be completely lonely provided that you love your own company. The world may have turned its back on you. But it can never break you if you continue cultivating self-love.
The below collection also includes wise sayings on the effects of loneliness on self-esteem and personal growth. Most instances of loneliness resulting from a heartbreak can deal a heavy blow to your emotions if they go unaddressed.
Loneliness can sprout feelings of self-inadequacy. The fact that more people are fleeing than staying in your life may get you wondering if you’re not good enough. If entertained long enough, these feelings of inadequacy may trigger serious self-esteem issues.
You may start to experience difficulties establishing and maintaining meaningful relationships. Worse yet, you could degenerate into a people pleaser. Fortunately, these quotes tackle the importance of combatting loneliness as a way of re-seizing control of your mental health.
Whether you’re suffering from chronic loneliness or know someone who is, we hope you find a suitable quote from this list.
1. “It had filled my time – given me quiet, steadfast company with those characters, who did not exist and never would, but somehow made me feel less … alone.”― Sarah J. Maas
2. “He says he’s lonely, horribly lonely because of this love he feels for her. She says she’s lonely too. She doesn’t say why.”― Marguerite Duras
3. “There are people who like to be alone without feeling lonely at all.”― Toba Beta
4. “I learned that day that there is no more lonely state than being in a lonely marriage.”― Julie Metz
5. “I don’t know why I still feel this pit in my stomach whenever I get a moment to think. I know what the pit is, too; I feel lonely. But I’m not alone, I keep telling myself.”― Pittacus Lore
6. “Forgiving, that’s what she is, and lonely. A person can forgive a lot if they need the company.”― Ali Land
7. “Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” – Henry Rollins
8. “Sometimes you need to take a break from everyone and spend time alone to experience, appreciate, and love yourself.” – Robert Tew
9. “Sometimes, you just need a break. In a beautiful place. Alone. To figure everything out.” – Anonymous
10. “Sometimes you have to stand alone. Just to make sure you still can.” – Anonymous
11. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
12. “Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.” —Pearl Buck
13. “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
14. “It is better to be lonely than allow people who are not going anywhere keep you from your destiny.” – Joel Osteen
15. “Loneliness is not lack of company, loneliness is lack of purpose.” – Guillermo Maldonado
16. “When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death – ourselves.” – Eda J. LeShan
17. “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
18. “It takes a strong person to remain single in a world that is accustomed to settling with anything just to say they have something.”- Anonymous
19. “I like being alone. I have control over my own shit. Therefore, in order to win me over, your presence has to feel better than my solitude. You’re not competing with another person, you’re competing with my comfort zones.” – Horacio Jones
20. “There are worse things than feeling alone. Things like being with someone and still feeling alone.”- M.W Poetry
21. “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
22. “The best part about being alone is that you really don’t have to answer to anybody. You do what you want.” – Justin Timberlake
23. “Being alone & actually sitting with our own thoughts can lead to such growth and realizations that are rare in our everyday busy lives.” – Kourtney Kardashian
24. “As I get older I’m more and more comfortable being alone.” – Sienna Miller
25. “Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.” ― Douglas Coupland
26. “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” ― Maya Angelou
27. “All great and precious things are lonely.” ― John Steinbeck
28. “When I get lonely these days, I think: So Be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert
29. “Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you’ll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.” ― Janet Fitch
30. “If you are afraid of being lonely don’t try to be right.” –Jules Renard
31. “If one’s different one’s bound to be lonely. –Aldous Huxley
32. “I’m not much but I’m all I have.” –Philip K. Dick
33. “If you smile when you are alone then you really mean it.” –Andy Rooney
34. “What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be.” –Ellen Burstyn
35. “Sometimes I think that my own company is more suitable for me than if I were around others. Because of the person that I am.” –Kyle Labe
36. “I’m not much but I’m all I have.” ― Philip K Dick
37. “A broken relationship can make you feel more lonely than when you were single.” – PictureQuotes.com
38. “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
39. “There’s nothing abnormal about loneliness.” –Paula Stokes
40. “If you want to miss your crown follow the crowd. If you want to wear the crown, go alone and be yourself. –Israelmore Ayivor
41. “I’m fascinated with myself and love hearing the sound of my own voice. I’d like to hear what I have to say. A lot of people don’t like being alone because they truly don’t like themselves but I love me.” –Gene Simmons
42. “My inspirations are the woman, friendship, and loneliness.”–Enrique Iglesias
If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of short quotes that can make a big difference in your life.
43. “Tore up my heart and shut it down. Nothing to do, nowhere to be. A simple little kind of free. Nothing to do, no one but me, and that’s all I need. I’m perfectly lonely.” –John Mayer
44. “The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.” –Henrik Ibsen
45. “All men’s misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.” –Jean de La Bruyère
46. “Some steps need to be taken alone. It’s the only way to really figure out where you need to go and who you need to be.” – Anonymous
47. “Lonely hours is the best time of life, because it’s the only time I share my deepest secrets with the most trusted person in the world, MYSELF.” – Anonymous
48. “Life is ever easy for those who dream.” – DandelionQuotes.com
49. “Never search your happiness in others, it will make you feel alone. Search it in yourself, you will feel happy even when you are left alone.” – Awesomequotesforyou.com
50. “It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” – George Washington
51. “I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
52. “If you go deeper and deeper into your own heart, you’ll be living in a world with less fear, isolation and loneliness.” – Sharon Salzberg
53. “The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.”
― Mitch Albom
54. “Loneliness is proof that your innate search for connection is intact.” – Martha Beck
55. “It’s weird to feel like you miss someone you’re not even sure you know.” ― David Foster Wallace
56. “In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.” – Laurence Sterne
57. “The loneliness you feel with another person, the wrong person, is the loneliest of all.” ― Deb Caletti
58. “When everything is lonely I can be my best friend.” – Conor Oberst
59. “My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.” ― Khalil Gibran
60. “Dreams have only one owner at a time. That’s why dreamers are lonely.” – Erma Bombeck
61. “I had been alone more than I could have been had I gone by myself.”― Sylvia Plath
62. “I am lonely, sometimes, but I dare say it’s good for me…”― Louisa May Alcott
63. “The worst thing about loneliness is that it brings one face to face with oneself.”― Mary Balogh
64. “You’ll end up living a lonely life if you’re waiting around for perfect.”― Samantha Young
65. “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
66. “I’ve noticed that loneliness gets stronger when we try to face it down, but gets weaker when we simply ignore it.”― Paulo Coelho
67. “You do not have to be alone. The world never inflicts loneliness upon us. That is something we choose or reject by ourselves.”― Darren Shan
68. “Sometimes being surronded by everyone is the loneliest, because you’ll realise you have no one to turn to.”― Soraya
69. “Throwing herself into learning helped Miri ignore the painful chill of solitude around her.”― Shannon Hale
70. “What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one to share my burden, but this: I have only my own burden to bear.”― Dag Hammarskjöld
71. “You never walk alone. Even the devil is the lord of flies.”― Gilles Deleuze
72. “Solitude is where one discovers one is not alone.”― Marty Rubin
73. “She understood how a world jammed with phones, email, and faxes could still leave you feeling utterly alone.”― Jodi Picoult
74. “People run away to be alone,’ he said. Some people had to be alone.”― William Trevo
75. “Loneliness is painful. But suffering is not wrong in and of itself. It’s part of the human experience, and in a way brings us closer to all people.”― Juliette Fay
76. “I’ll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does.” – Henry Rollins
If you’re enjoying these quotes, you’ll love our collection of powerful depression quotes that will provide perspective.
77. “Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”– Anonymous
78. “We need solitude, because when we’re alone, we’re free from obligations, we don’t need to put on a show, and we can hear our own thoughts.” – Tamim Ansary
79. “Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.” – Paul Tillich
80. “We need quiet time to examine our lives openly and honestly – spending quiet time alone gives your mind an opportunity to renew itself and create order.”– Susan L. Taylor
81. “A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.”– Bertrand Russell
82. “You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone.” – Amit Ray
83. “Solitude is the beginning of all freedom.”– William Orville Douglas
84. “If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” – Maya Angelou
85. “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.”– Orson Welles
86. “No one is ever alone and silence does not equate defeat.” – Joan Ambu
87. “Solitude is independence.” – Herman Hesse
88. “Sometimes you need to sit lonely on the floor in a quiet room in order to hear your own voice and not let it drown in the noise of others.” – Charlotte Eriksson
89. “Solitude is strength; to depend on the presence of the crowd is weakness. The man who needs a mob to nerve him is much more alone than he imagines.”– Paul Brunton
90. “Pray that your loneliness may spur into finding something to live for, great enough to die for.” – Dag Hammarskjold
91. “Make the time to be alone. Your best ideas live within solitude.” – Robin Sharma
92. “Don’t fear solitude: If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself. But don’t get too attached to it – it may become an addiction.” – Paulo Coelho
93. “Sometimes it’s better to be alone no one can hurt you that way.”– Tinku Razoria
94. “I tell you loneliness is the thing to master. Courage and fear love death are only parts of it and can easily be ruled afterwards. If I make myself master my own loneliness there will be peace or safety: and perhaps these are the same.” – Martha Gellhorn
95. “I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel alone.”– Robin Williams
96. “The world is a beautiful place to be, the seasons, the people and everything that makes up living. No one deserves to be lonely in this beautiful world, that’s just so dark and ugly.” – Unknown
97. “Lonely was much better than alone.” –Toni Morrison
98. “Be willing to let people in because the room called loneliness is one that can only open from the inside, if you don’t grab the doorknob, the door will forever stay shut.” – Unknown
99. “I’m all alone but I’m not lonely.” – Haruki Murakami
100. “Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.” – Thomas Wolfe
101. “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre
102. “Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The 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
103. “All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal
104. “Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you.” – Haruki Murakami
105. “I’m learning a lot about myself being alone and doing what I’m doing.” – Chantal Kreviazuk
106. “Loneliness should not deprive you of the full human experience, live and love fully. Give yourself the chance to experience all that entails life.” – Unknown
107. “Even in the loneliest moments I have been there for myself.” – Sanober Khan
108. “There’s a limit to how strong you can be, everyone breaks when it comes to isolation because no one is stronger than loneliness, it breaks you beyond repair.” – Unknown
109. “People run away to be alone he said. Some people had to be alone.” –William Trevor
110. “Yes there is joy fulfillment and companionship—but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.” –Sylvia Plath
111. “I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” ― Henry David Thoreau
112. “The pain of being alone is completely out of this world isn’t it? I don’t know why but I understand your feelings so much it actually hurts.” –Masashi Kishimoto
113. “Don’t feel alone, because there is always someone out there who loves you more than you can imagine.” ― Anurag Prakash Ray
114. “I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone.” – Audrey Hepburn
115. “We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness.” –Albert Schweitzer
116. “Being lonely is not being alone, you can be in a big crowd of people and still feel lonely despite it.” – Unknown
117. “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
118. “It’s far better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone — so far.” – Marilyn Monroe
119. “There is a certain strength in being alone.” – Heather Duffy Stone
120. “I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” – Hunter S. Thompson
121. “It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us.” – K.T. Jong
122. “There are two kinds of loneliness:
one you feel you are all alone;
the other you feel in a crowded room,
when you realize you are the only person who knows what it’s like to be you.” – Atticus
123. “Until you get comfortable with being alone, you’ll never know if you’re choosing someone out of love or loneliness.” – Mandy Hale
124. “If you wanted to do something absolutely honest, something true, it always turned out to be a thing that had to be done alone.” – Richard Yates
125. “For fear you will be alone, you do so many things that aren’t you at all.” – Richard Brautigan
126. “In all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.”― Carl Sagan
127. “Loneliness is like being the only person left alive in the universe, except that everyone else is still here.”― Simon Van Booy
128. “To be alone with yourself is to be alone. To be in the company of others is to be alone together. The only time you are not alone is when you forget yourself and reach out in love — the lines of self blur, and just for a wild, flickering moment you experience the miracle of other. And now you know the secret.”― Vera Nazarian
129. “There were people everywhere but no one was mine, and I was no one’s.”― Gregory Maguire
130. “Loneliness is a state of feeling that can be changed.
People may still feel lonely even among the crowd.”― Toba Beta
131. “Anyone who knows how scary it is to be alone, can’t help loving others.” ~Rin Sohma”― Natsuki Takaya
132. “Loneliness is the prison of the human spirit. When we are lonely, we pace back and forth in small, shut-in worlds.”― John Joseph Powell
133. “The worst kind of loneliness in the world is isolation that comes from being misunderstood. It can make people lose their grasp on reality.”― Shyza Chaudhry
134. “The sun loved me again when it saw that the stars would not abandon me.”― Jenim Dibie
135. “Loneliness Ends With Love.”― Al Lerner
136. “There were people everywhere on the city street, but the stranger could not have been more alone if it were empty.”― Markus Zusak
137. “We’ve got a bond in common, you and I. We are both alone in the world.”― Daphne du Maurier
138. “Half of the time I don’t know what they’re talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I’m a foreigner in the world and I don’t understand the language.”― Jean Webster
139. “Eventually, we all end up alone.”― Ally Carter
140. “The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.” — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
141. “A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.” — Mandy Hale
142. “The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” — Michel de Montaigne
143. “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
144. “Sometimes you need to be alone. Not to be lonely, but to enjoy your free time being yourself.” – Anonymous
145. “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 William