Covid Isolation Quotes

Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Solitude is one thing and being alone is another. Solitude can be isolation, an escape, an unwanted thing; but to be alone without the burden of life, with that utter freedom in which time/thought has never been, is to be with the universe. In solitude there is despairing loneliness, a sense of being abandoned, lost, craving for some kind of relationship, like a ship lost at sea. All our daily activity leads to this isolation, with its endless conflicts and miseries, and rare joys thrown in. This isolation is corruption, manifested in politics, in business and of course in organized religions. Corruption exists in the very high places and on the very doorstep. To be tied is corruption; any form of attachment leads to it, whether it be to a belief, faith, ideal, experience, or any conclusion. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Existential isolation, a third given, refers to the unbridgeable gap between self and others, a gap that exists even in the presence of deeply gratifying interpersonal relationships. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

The wilderness is a place of rest - not in the sense of being motionless, for the lure, after all, is to move, to round the next bend. The rest comes in the isolation from distractions, in the slowing of the daily centrifugal forces that keep us off balance. ~ David Douglas

But if America recalls for a moment what Europe has meant to her and still means to her, what Europe, the mother of art and of knowledge, in spite of everything, still is and still will be, will she not reject these counsels of indifference and isolation, and interest herself in what may prove decisive issues for the progress and civilization of all mankind? ~ John Maynard Keynes

That the deprecating attitude of a mass movement toward the present seconds the inclinations of the frustrated is obvious. What surprises one, when listening to the frustrated as they decry the present and all its works, is the enormous joy they derive from doing so. Such delight cannot come from the mere venting of a grievance. There must be something more -- and there is. By expatiating upon the incurable baseness and vileness of the times, the frustrated soften their feeling of failure and isolation. It is as if they said: 'Not only our blemished selves, but the lives of all our contemporaries, even the most happy and successful, are worthless and wasted.' Thus by deprecating the present they acquire a vague sense of equality. ~ Eric Hoffer

He was a stranger here. The people who might remember him would certainly not welcome him. His old gang had cast him out, along with all of the former friends and parents. The suburban landscape of hypocrisy, so hated in his youth, beheld again and with it, old feelings that motivated him through life more than he would ever admit. Every turning point in life, already decided by all the events here ~ Jaime Allison Parker

How young I seem; I am exceptional;
I think of all I have.
But really no one is exceptional,
No one has anything, I'm anybody,
I stand beside my grave
Confused with my life, that is commonplace and solitary. ~ Randall Jarell

Thanks to the greatly improved possibility of communication, we overrate its importance. Even stronger, we underrate the importance of isolation. ~ Edsger Dijkstra

We have to live without sympathy, don't we? That's impossible of course. We act it to one another, all this hardness; but we aren't like that really, I mean ... one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold ... d'you see what I mean? ~ John Le Carre

Saving a life just got much more important than savouring a lifestyle. ~ Amit Kalantri

Putin likes to quote a sentence from Czar Alexander III, who said that Russian has only two allies - the army and the navy. As a citizen, this makes me sit up and take notice. This is a concept of self-imposed isolation, a defense strategy that sees Russia surrounded by enemies. ~ Vladimir Sorokin

With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage. An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Privacy and loneliness were the traditional luxuries accorded to a skipper. ~ Tom Clancy

I have this one nasty habit. Makes me hard to live with. I write ...
... writing is antisocial. It's as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is likely to turn and bite right to the bone ... and not even know that he's doing it. As writers' wives and husbands often learn to their horror ...
... there is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured. In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear you at all ... and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites ... ~ Robert A. Heinlein

One cannot know oneself, what one actually is except in relationship. Anger, jealousy, envy, lust - all such reactions exist only in one's relationship with people, with things, and with ideas. If there is no relationship at all, if there is complete isolation, one cannot know oneself. The mind can isolate itself, thinking that it is somebody, which is a state of lunacy, unbalance, and in that state it cannot know itself. It merely has ideas about itself, like the idealist who is isolating himself from the fact of what he is by pursuing what he should be. That is what most of us are doing. Because relationship is painful, we want to isolate ourselves from this pain, and in the isolating process we create the ideal of what we should be, which is imaginary, an invention of the mind. So we can know ourselves as we actually are, consciously as well as unconsciously, only in relationship, and that is fairly obvious. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Rash actions are seldom committed in isolation. With the first rash action we always do too much. So we usually go on to commit asecond one
and then we do too little. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

And with each day that passed, the gulf broadened and my isolation became more accentuated. In such a situation, the discovery that my experience was not unique, that it had also been that of other Spanish intellectuals, became very important for me. ~ Juan Goytisolo

When you are isolated and obscured, your achievements may be wonderful but unknown. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

I think the most satisfying part about filmmaking is seeing a production in full bloom. When I write, I write in isolation. ~ Jeff Kinney

The development of Space was followed by mutant viruses and a global pandemic. ~ Steven Magee

The man who is too isolated grows timid, abstracted, a little odd: He stumbles along amid realities like a sailor who has just come off his ship; he has lost the sense of the human lot; he seems to look on you as if you were a "proposition" to be inserted in a syllogism, or an example to be put down in a notebook. ~ Antonin Sertillanges

Peace reigned in silence, inside and out, in isolation and exhaustion. ~ Steven Erikson

Despite the proliferation of personal storytelling in recent years, and the shift in social conditions that has facilitated these stories being told and heard, there are still certain stories that cannot be told - either because we have no language with which to articulate them or because there is no interpretive community to hear and understand them. These stories become, instead, secrets and lies - stories that signal social isolation and disempowerment rather than connection and strength. One such story within contemporary culture, as the epigraphs from Dorothy Allison and Victoria Brownworth suggest, is the story of class - a story that often only becomes tellable as a lie, joke, or dirty secret. This is especially the case with the category of "white trash. ~ Annalee Newitz

This pandemic is world reset. We have a chance to change the world. What is has proven is no matter what your politics, no matter what your religion, no matter what your job status. We are all brother and sister in the world together. Human kindness has come out in so many ways. Can't buy a mask people make it for you. Don't have food, let me drop some off at your porch. Love is all around you. All you have to do is look! I think the world need a hippie right now and I am going to be a tad optimistic. Some advise from the original hippie. Love Thy Neighbor As Yourself. Let's have that as the new rule in this world reset. ~ Johnny Corn

She met the magus's stunned look with a smile. The Thieves of Eddis have always been uncomfortable allies to the throne, Magus. There is the niggling fear that if you fall out with a Thief, he might see it as his right and responsibility to remove you. There are some checks, of course. There is only ever one Thief. They are prohibited from owning any property. Their training inevitably generates the isolation that makes them independent, but also keeps them from forming alliances that might become threats to the throne. It is not the folly you might think. ~ Megan Whalen Turner

I am in no way different from anyone else, that my predicament, my sense of aloneness or isolation may be precisely what unites me with everyone. ~ Franz Wright

What drives us to despair is not the immensity of our unsatisfied desires, but the moment when our fledgling passion discovers its own emptiness. Insatiable desire for passionate knowledge of one pretty girl after another stems from anxiety and from fear of love, so afraid are we of never encountering anything but objects. The dawn when lovers leave each other's arms is the same dawn that breaks on the execution of revolutionaries without a revolution. Isolation a deux cannot prevail over the isolation of all. Pleasure is broken off prematurely and lovers find themselves naked in the world, their actions suddenly ridiculous and feeble. No love is possible in an unhappy world. ~ Raoul Vaneigem

Counterproductive Types of Care and Caution

The same careful and cautious tendencies that can be helpful in some situations can become paralyzing in others. You might hold back from opportunities or get caught up in minutia while leaving bigger issues unattended. Very cautious tendencies can also cause people to hold back from attempting to form relationships - whether they be friendships or romantic, business, or collegial relationships. There's always some level of vulnerability that comes along with developing any type of close relationship. Therefore, in some cases, anxiety-based instincts to be self-protective can leave people feeling isolated and alone. Anxious people will sometimes avoid feeling vulnerable at all costs, even if it means feeling lonely or their isolation from peers thwarts their career success. ~ Alice Boyes

To talk only about national security, national defense, means to be selfish, ambitious. It is discrimination, isolation. "It is just me. What do I care about others?" ~ Evo Morales

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

I think isolation is one of the greatest problems, an ever-growing obstacle to political solidarity. ~ Elfriede Jelinek

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of. ~ Anne Lamott

A sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

In Jesus Christ there is no isolation of man from God or of God from man. Rather, in Him we encounter the history, the dialogue, in which God and man meet together and are together, the reality of the covenant MUTUALLY contracted, preserved, and fulfilled by them. Jesus Christ is in His one Person, as true GOD, MAN'S loyal partner, and as true MAN, GOD'S. He is the Lord humbled for communion with man and likewise the Servant exalted to communion with God. ~ Karl Barth

Floods, fires, earthquakes, disease, starvation, betrayal, isolation, murder.
What doesn't kill us sharpens us. Hardens us. Schools us. ~ Rick Yancey

Mennonites formed themselves in Holland five hundred years ago after a man named Menno Simons became so moved by hearing Anabaptist prisoners singing hymns before being executed by the Spanish Inquisition that he joined their cause and became their leader. Then they started to move all around the world in colonies looking for freedom and isolation and peace and opportunities to sell cheese. Different countries give us shelter if we agree to stay out of trouble and help with the economy by farming in obscurity. We live like ghosts. Then, sometimes, those countries decide they want us to be real citizens after all and start to force us to do things like join the army or pay taxes or respect laws and then we pack our stuff up in the middle of the night and move to another country where we can live purely but somewhat out of context. ~ Miriam Toews

The walls of isolation are not as solid as your suffering makes them seem. ~ Deepak Chopra

No one can help us to achieve the intimate isolation by which we find our secret worlds, so mysterious, rich and full. If others intervene, it is destroyed. This degree of thought, which we attain by freeing ourselves from the external world, must be fed by the inner spirit, and our surroundings cannot influence us in any way other than to leave us in peace. ~ Maria Montessori

Our culture values independence and isolation far too much, it seems to me
we have a hard time making ourselves part of things, of making ourselves responsible to others, and trusting others to be there for us. Sure, there's pain involved if we get hurt, but there's far more pain in isolation. I love community because God gave us other people to live with, not to pull away from, and I learn so much from others that I can't imagine my life without the learning I've gained from getting to know other people. ~ Tom Walsh

primary importance of touch is as an antidote to isolation and despair. ~ David Kuhl

Repeat to yourself every day and as often as you can: 'O Lord, have mercy on all those who will appear before You today.' For every hour, every second, thousands of men leave this world and their souls appear before the Lord, and no one knows how many of them leave this earth in isolation, sadness, and anguish, with no one to take pity on them or even care whether they live or die. And so your prayer for such a man will rise to the Lord from the other end of the earth, although he may never have heard of you or you of him. But his soul, as it stands trembling before the Lord, will be cheered and gladdened to learn that there is someone on earth who loves him. And the Lord's mercy will be even greater to both of you, for, however great your pity for the man, God's pity will be much greater, for He is infinitely more merciful and more loving than you are. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

For most of us, the most common and unfortunate side effect of skin problems is isolation. We don't want to be seen the way we look. You can hide a lot of physical flaws, but not acne. It's right there, on the first thing people notice about us - our face. And it's hard for some of us to imagine that people can see the face - the PERSON - behind the acne. ~ Yancy Lael

The ordeals at the airport, she said, had made her feel helpless and pathetic and lost. The strange way they spoke. Her diminishing supply of money. The cab rides through the mountains. The rain and heat. And the edge, the dark edge, the inwrought mood or tone, the ominous logic of the place. It was all dreamlike, a nightmare of isolation and constraint. She had to get off the island. ~ Anonymous

Sometimes it seemed to Lydia that work was the only certainty, the only lasting truth in a human world of fitful change. Work and the mountains remained. Joy was deceitful and as brief as a summer rainbow. Love was a spear upon which you hurled yourself in ecstasy--to discover pain and bear the wound forever. A man in your heart, the child of your flesh, a dream of your spirit--you gave yourself to them, wholly and in wonder, and they never knew you. ~ Wilma Dykeman

Like Abraham you will believe, like Sarah you will conceive, and like Moses you will rise from your isolation and exile. You will live again. God is determined to reverse your tragedy into transformation and crown your tomb with the testimony of a glorious resurrection. From ~ Dutch Sheets

My religion: Very seldom do I feel a need for the presence of God. I don't pray and I don't know how to pray. When I enter a church, I try to pray, but I can't tell if I succeed or not. But often I have religious "attacks": the desire for isolation, for contemplation far from other people. Despair. The desire (and the hope) for asceticism. ~ Mircea Eliade

Ignorant of history, we find it easy to accept our isolation from one another. We are more able to recognize differences than shared experiences and perspectives. History proclaims our common humanity. ~ Linda Simon