Self Isolation Quotes

Beethoven's music always struck me. Always. He had this fire you know. I remember reading this story of him going deaf and pushing himself into self-isolation and that's where he became himself. And to me that was, wow. Don't let anything poison your individuality. Be away, break away and look in not outward. ~ Rodney Mullen

These are not ordinary times where we play politics and juggle with the safety of the society. These are the times that demand prompt decisions and utter responsibility towards not just the self but our kind – the humankind. ~ Abhijit Naskar

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed. . . . But this cannot be seen, only believed and 'understood' by a peculiar gift. ~ Thomas Merton

I know that hunger for self-isolation, it eats u up. Disconnecting yourself from external world and longing to disappear. ~ Shreya Gupta

By insisting specially on the immanence of God we get introspection, self-isolation, quietism, social indifference – Tibet. By insisting specially on the transcendence of God we get wonder, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteous indignation – Christendom. Insisting that God is inside man, man is always inside himself. By insisting that God transcends man, man has transcended himself. ~ G.K. Chesterton

The whole point of meditation is not to follow the path laid down by thought to what it considers to be truth, enlightenment or reality. There is no path to truth. The following of any path leads to what thought has already formulated and, however pleasant or satisfying, it is not truth. It is a fallacy to think that a system of meditation, the constant practising of that system in daily life for a few given moments, or the repetition of it during the day, will bring about clarity or understanding. Meditation lies beyond all this and, like love, cannot be cultivated by thought. As long as the thinker exists to meditate, meditation is merely a part of that self-isolation which is the common movement of one's everyday life. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Right now the first and foremost priority of the entire humankind must be to plank the curve through self-isolation. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I think that in many cases people tend to expect the other person to respond to them in a positive way first, rather than taking the initiative themselves to create that possibility. I feel that's wrong, it leads to problems and can act as a barrier that just serves to promote a feeling of isolation from others. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

I think, if you have enough inner resources, then you can live in isolation for long periods of time and not feel diminished by it. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi

A caterpillar must endure a season of isolation before it turns into a butterfly. Embrace the time you have alone, it will only make you stronger. ~ Steven Aitchison

If we want hell,
if we want heaven,
they are ours.
That's how love works. It can't be forced, manipulated, or coerced.
It always leaves room for the other to decide.
God says yes,
we can have what we want,
because love wins. ~ Rob Bell

On December 7, 2059, Emilio Sandoz was released from the isolation ward of Salvator Mundi Hospital in the middle of the night and transported in a bread van to the Jesuit residence at Number 5 Borgo Santo Spirito, a few minutes' walk across St. Peter's Square from the Vatican. ~ Mary Doria Russell

Art and architecture
all the arts
do not have to exist in isolation, ~ Donald Judd

Acquainted with the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night. ~ Robert Frost

It is my opinion that the isolated mind loses its purchase on reality all too easily and becomes prone to fantasy. ~ Frank Tallis

Do you read books?" Dr. Weiss asked her in one of her session with him.

She nodded in acceptance. Her lips were stitched with the thread of agony and isolation. She spoke less and when she was asked for anything. She used to nod.

"They are escape, aren't they? When I was a kid, I used to believe that the cover of the book is a door. You open it and go inside. I still believe that and the kid in me is still alive." Dr. Weiss walked to the bookshelf and pulled out a book.

Her eyelashes were heavier. The lower part was much more lighter than upper one. It had the comfort to leak down all its pain to the cheeks. The pain that could be evaporated.

"You are reading this book," He put a book on the glass table. It came in range of her eyesight. The book was titled "Depression."

He continued, "Or, perhaps, you and I, we both are in a book and someone is reading it on its couch, bed, in mobile or in train. Maybe after 15 pages the reader who has glued his eyes to this book may find that you are out of your depression completely. Look at the reader out of the page, look how curious he is. I would keep my mouth shut now, else it would get to know the whole story. ~ Himanshu Chhabra

It's frustrating for me to be unable to speak. To feel that I have so much to say, so many ways I can help, but I'm locked in a soundproof box, a game show isolation booth from which I can see out and I can hear what's going on, but they never turn on my microphone and they never let me out. It might drive a person mad. It certainly has driven many a dog mad. ~ Garth Stein

If there's a silver bullet in the battle to recapture Albany, it is the re-engagement of our citizens. This capital has become a physical metaphor for the isolation and alienation of our people. ~ Andrew Cuomo

Do you realize what a beacon you've become?"

"A - I beg your pardon?"

"A beacon of hope," says the woman, smiling. "As soon as we announced we'd be doing this interview, our viewers started calling in, e-mails, text messages, telling us you're an angel, a talisman of goodness . . ."

Ma makes a face. "All I did was I survived, and I did a pretty good job of raising Jack. A good enough job."

"You're very modest."

"No, what I am is irritated, actually."

The puffy-hair woman blinks twice.

"All this reverential - I'm not a saint." Ma's voice is getting loud again. "I wish people would stop treating us like we're the only ones who ever lived through something terrible. I've been finding stuff on the Internet you wouldn't believe."

"Other cases like yours?"

"Yeah, but not just - I mean, of course when I woke up in that shed, I thought nobody'd ever had it as bad as me. But the thing is, slavery's not a new invention. And solitary confinement - did you know, in America we've got more than twenty-five thousand prisoners in isolation cells? Some of them for more than twenty years." Her hand is pointing at the puffy-hair woman. "As for kids - there's places where babies lie in orphanages five to a cot with pacifiers taped into their mouths, kids getting raped by Daddy every night, kids in prisons, whatever, making carpets till they go blind - ~ Emma Donoghue

Isolation serves as the ideal antidote to the bone-aching stresses of work. ~ Fennel Hudson

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

Strays is what a writer I recently read calls those who, for one reason or another, and despite whatever they might have wanted earlier in life, never really become a part of life, not in the way most people do. They may have serious relationships, they may have friends, even a sizable circle, they may spend large portions of their time in the company of others. But they never marry and they never have children. On holidays, they join some family or other group. This goes on year after year, until they finally find it in themselves to admit that they'd really rather just stay home.

But you must see a lot of people like that, I say to the therapist.

Actually, he says, I don't. ~ Sigrid Nunez

An individual may be alone in a physical sense for many years and yet he may be related to ideas, values, or at least social patterns that give him a feeling of communion and "belonging." On the other hand, he may live among people and yet be overcome with an utter feeling of isolation, the outcome of which, if it transcends a certain limit, is the state of insanity which schizophrenic disturbances present. ~ Erich Fromm

Maybe the desert wisdom of the Dakotas can teach us to love anyway, to love what is dying, in the face of death, and not pretend that things are other than they are. The irony and wonder of all of this is that it is the desert's grimness, its stillness and isolation, that brings us back to love. ~ Kathleen Norris

Poverty, I realized, wasn't only a lack of financial resources; it was isolation from the kind of people that could help you make more of yourself. ~ Keith Ferrazzi

At a basic level, Facebook, like most other forms of social media, runs on doublespeak: advertising connection but creating isolation; promising happiness but inculcating dread. ~ Jia Tolentino

And in this curious state I had the realization, at the moment of seeing that stranger there, that I was a person like everybody else. That I was known by my actions and words, that my internal universe was unavailable for inspection by others. They didn't know. They didn't know, because I never told them. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

It's the loneliest people who love books the most...it was the opposite of loneliness, too, like there were too many people around me, forced connections, that I needed a little isolation to think on my own, to be my own person. ~ Etaf Rum

Helping reproductive services doesn't just help women in isolation. It helps men just as much. ~ Tucker Max

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

Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the somber renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings. I mean long journeys across gray space. I mean danger, the edge of every void, the circumstance of one man imparting an erotic terror to the dreams of the republic. Understand the man who must inhabit these extreme regions, monstrous and vulval, damp with memories of violation. Even if half-mad he is absorbed into the public's total madness; even if fully rational, a bureaucrat in hell, a secret genius of survival, he is sure to be destroyed by the public's contempt for survivors. Fame, this special kind, feeds itself on outrage, on what the counselors of lesser men would consider bad publicity-hysteria in limousines, knife fights in the audience, bizarre litigation, treachery, pandemonium and drugs. Perhaps the only natural law attaching to true fame is that the famous man is compelled, eventually, to commit suicide.
(Is it clear I was a hero of rock'n'roll?)
Toward the end of the final tour it became apparent that our audience wanted more than music, more even than its own reduplicated noise. It's possible the culture had reached its limit, a point of severe tension. There was less sense of simple visceral abandon at our concerts during these last weeks. Few cases of arson and vandalism. Fewer still of rape. No smoke bombs or threats of worse explosives. Our followers, in their isolation, were not concerned with precedent now. They w ~ Don DeLillo

Echo shifts, and her bottom presses into me. I take advantage and draw her closer. Her tank rides up, and I rest my palm against the heat of her stomach. I lived too long in cold isolation before Echo stumbled into my life, bringing her warmth and love. ~ Katie McGarry

Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally believed to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petrie dish of melodrama and distortion. I remember well, for instance, the blind animal terror which ensued when some townie set off the civil defense sirens as a joke. Someone said it was a nuclear attack; TV and radio reception, never good there in the mountains, happened to be particularly bad that night, and in the ensuing stampede for the telephones the switchboard shorted out, plunging the school into a violent and almost unimaginable panic. Cars collided in the parking lot. People sceamed, wept, gave away t heir possessions, huddled in small groups for comfort and warmth. Some hippies barricaded themselves in the Science Building, in the lone bomb shelter, and refused to let anyone in who didn't know the world to "Sugar Magnolia." Factions formed, leaders rose from the chaos. Though the world, in fact, was not destroyed, everyone had a marvelous time and people spoke fondly of the event for years afterward. ~ Donna Tartt

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

The great thing, as a screenwriter, is that you are always proud of what ends up on the screen, you are able to create something in isolation and you have a lot of freedom. ~ Jamie Linden

As a group, housewives to-day suffer more from social isolation and loss of purpose than any other social group, except, perhaps, the old. ~ Alva Myrdal

A saint addicted to abnegation is a dangerous neighbor; he is very likely to infect you with an incurable poverty, a stiffening of the articulations necessary to advancement, and, in fact, more renunciation than you would like; and men flee from this contagious virtue. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur Bienvenu. We live in a sad society. Succeed
that is the advice which falls drop by drop from the overhanging corruption. ~ Victor Hugo

Compared with that of a great artist, the friendliness of a great nobleman, however charming it may be, seems like play-acting, like simulation. Saint-Loup sought to please; Elstir loved to give, to give himself. Everything he possessed, ideas, works, and the rest which he counted for far less, he would have given gladly to anyone who understood him. But, for lack of congenial company, he lived in an unsociable isolation which fashionable people call pose and ill-breeding, the authorities a recalcitrant spirit, his neighbours madness, his family selfishness and pride. ~ Marcel Proust

The political independence of a nation must not be confused with any intellectual isolation. The spiritual freedom, indeed, your own generous lives and liberal air will give you. From us you will learn the classical restraint of form. For all great art is delicate art, roughness having very little to do with strength, and harshness very little to do with power. 'The artist,' as Mr. Swinburne says, 'must be perfectly articulate.' This limitation is for the artist perfect freedom: it is at once the origin and the sign of his strength. So that all the supreme masters of style - Dante, Sophocles, Shakespeare - are the supreme masters of spiritual and intellectual vision also. Love art for its own sake, and then all things that you need will be added to you. ~ Oscar Wilde

One of the disadvantages of traveling alone is that when you fall there is none to assist you. ~ Roger Zelazny

No practice exists in isolation. ~ Idries Shah

I would go even further and warn that failing to use both approaches invites danger. The STM, carried out in isolation from the RHM, can produce a Christianity that is rationalistic, legalistic, and individualistic. Similarly the RHM, carried out in isolation from the STM, tends to produce a Christianity that loves narrative and community but shies away from sharp distinctions between grace and law and between truth and heresy. ~ Timothy Keller

Isolation in creative work is an onerous thing. Better to have negative criticism than nothing at all. ~ Anton Chekhov

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