He who does not enjoy solitude, will not love freedom. Arthur Schopenhauer
One can acquire everything in solitude except character. Stendhal (Henri Beyle)
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. Henry David Thoreau
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. James Russell Lowell
Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius. Edward Gibbon
A man must keep a little back shop where he can be himself without reserve. In solitude alone can he know true freedom. Michel de Montaigne
Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But it also gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd. Thomas Mann
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
Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself. Thomas Browne
Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it. Thomas Merton
Solitude vivifies; isolation kills. Joseph Roux
It would do the world good if every man would compel himself occasionally to be absolutely alone. Most of the world’s progress has come out of such loneliness. Bruce Barton
Alone, even doing nothing, you do not waste your time. You do, almost always, in company. No encounter with yourself can be altogether sterile: Something necessarily emerges, even if only the hope of some day meeting yourself again. E M Cioran