Best 399 quotes in «isolation quotes» category

A lot of us are like that—I’m like that, Ed Abbey was like that, and it sounds like this McCandless kid was like that: We like companionship, see, but we can’t stand to be around people for very long. So we go get ourselves lost, come back for a while, then get the hell out again.

A major determining factor by which a superior human can be isolated from his average counterparts is his very isolation—the degree to which he naturally removes himself from mass-media input and stimuli. You cannot be an elitist, a Magician, and be plugged into the system.

America was an iceberg shattered into a billion fragments, and on each stood a person, rotating like an ice floe in a storm.

Am I creating my own isolation? It seems to me that most of my acts are acts of integrity. So much takes place within me each day that by comparison I find a paucity, a stinginess, a silence in people which drives me to excess.

And here it becomes evident that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state that it has to feed him instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie; in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of modern industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

And he wonders, deep in the self-isolated recesses of his mind whether he is killing himself with anger, whether he is destroying his system with fury.

And it is because we all of us know of this sombre power and its perilous manifestations, that we stand in so deep a dread of silence. We can bear, when need must be, the silence of ourselves, that of isolation: but the silence of many - silence multiplied - and above all the silence of a crowd - these are supernatural burdens, whose inexplicable weight brings dread to the mightiest soul.

And my inability to share this anger with anybody in the lobby aroused in me a profound sense of isolation." - Toru Okada

And then, for an hour, he became aware of the strange life he was leading, of him doing lots of things which were only a game, of, though being happy and feeling joy at times, real life still passing him by and not touching him. As a ball-player plays with his balls, he played with his business-deals, with the people around him, watched them, found amusement in them; with his heart, with the source of his being, he was not with them. The source ran somewhere, far away from him, ran and ran invisibly, had nothing to do with his life any more. And at several times he suddenly became scared on account of such thoughts and wished that he would also be gifted with the ability to participate in all of this childlike-naive occupations of the daytime with passion and with his heart, really to live, really to act, really to enjoy and to live instead of just standing by as a spectator.

And there’s one other matter I must raise. The epidemic of domestic sexual violence that lacerates the soul of South Africa is mirrored in the pattern of grotesque raping in areas of outright conflict from Darfur to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in areas of contested electoral turbulence from Kenya to Zimbabwe. Inevitably, a certain percentage of the rapes transmits the AIDS virus. We don’t know how high that percentage is. We know only that women are subjected to the most dreadful double jeopardy. The point must also be made that there’s no such thing as the enjoyment of good health for women who live in constant fear of rape. Countless strong women survive the sexual assaults that occur in the millions every year, but every rape leaves a scar; no one ever fully heals. This business of discrimination against and oppression of women is the world’s most poisonous curse. Nowhere is it felt with greater catastrophic force than in the AIDS pandemic. This audience knows the statistics full well: you’ve chronicled them, you’ve measured them, the epidemiologists amongst you have disaggregated them. What has to happen, with one unified voice, is that the scientific community tells the political community that it must understand one incontrovertible fact of health: bringing an end to sexual violence is a vital component in bringing an end to AIDS. The brave groups of women who dare to speak up on the ground, in country after country, should not have to wage this fight in despairing and lonely isolation. They should hear the voices of scientific thunder. You understand the connections between violence against women and vulnerability to the virus. No one can challenge your understanding. Use it, I beg you, use it.

And when you die only your thoughts that have reached paper remain. Finally when someone stumbles upon those words, reads about your loves and your losses, you touch them emotionally and for a time they finally feel understood. For that time they realise, they too shared the same thoughts and ideas, And then they realise just as I have realised, You are not truly as alone in this universe as you think are.

An eternity gone by ,in this solitude, A confinement within my mind , to endure through life. Isolation , they say, is a gift that only the strongest possesses. Breaking the norms of conformity . Insane, am I?  For , to be accepted , I need to be part of " them ". I am an anarchy and the anarchist , I am, my ,own " God".

A number of years ago I had some experience with being alone. For two succeeding years I was alone each winter for eight months at a stretch in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Lake Tahoe. I was the caretaker on a summer estate during the winter months when it was snowed in. And I made some observations then. As time went on I found that my reactions thickened. Ordinarily I am a whistler. I stopped whistling. I stopped conversing with my dogs, and I believe that the subtleties of feeling began to disappear until finally I was on a pleasure-pain basis. Then it occurred to me that the delicate shades of feeling, of reaction, are the result of communication, and without such communication they tend to disappear. A man with nothing to say has no words. Can its reverse be true- a man who has no one to say anything to has no words as he has no need for words? ... Only through imitation do we develop toward originality.

An overcrowded world is the ideal place in which to be lonely.

A season of loneliness and isolation is when the caterpillar gets its wings. Remember that next time you feel alone.

As a teenager and young adult, I found being mute intensely isolating and dehumanizing. I felt truly like I was just a pair of eyes and ears - an entity without a body, without a face, and without a mouth. I felt as though I was barely a physical being.

At this stage of the game, I don’t have the time for patience and tolerance. Ten years ago, even five years ago, I would have listened to people ask their questions, explained to them, mollified them. No more. That time is past. Now, as Norman Mailer said in Naked and the Dead, ‘I hate everything which is not in myself.’ If it doesn’t have a direct bearing on what I’m advocating, if it doesn’t augment or stimulate my life and thinking, I don’t want to hear it. It has to add something to my life. There’s no more time for explaining and being ecumenical anymore. No more time. That’s a characteristic I share with the new generation of Satanists, which might best be termed, and has labeled itself in many ways, an ‘Apocalypse culture.’ Not that they believe in the biblical Apocalypse—the ultimate war between good and evil. Quite the contrary. But that there is an urgency, a need to get on with things and stop wailing and if it ends tomorrow, at least we’ll know we’ve lived today. It’s a ‘fiddle while Rome burns’ philosophy. It’s the Satanic philosophy. If the generation born in the 50’s grew up in the shadow of The Bomb and had to assimilate the possibility of imminent self destruction of the entire planet at any time, those born in the 60’s have had to reconcile the inevitability of our own destruction, not through the bomb but through mindless, uncontrolled overpopulation. And somehow resolve in themselves, looking at what history has taught us, that no amount of yelling, protesting, placard waving, marching, wailing—or even more constructive avenues like running for government office or trying to write books to wake people up—is going to do a damn bit of good. The majority of humans have an inborn death wish—they want to destroy themselves and everything beautiful. To finally realize that we’re living in a world after the zenith of creativity, and that we can see so clearly the mechanics of our own destruction, is a terrible realization. Most people can’t face it. They’d rather retreat to the comfort of New Age mysticism. That’s all right. All we want, those few of us who have the strength to realize what’s going on, is the freedom to create and entertain and share with each other, to preserve and cherish what we can while we can, and to build our own little citadels away from the insensitivity of the rest of the world.

Automation won’t take your job, but the self-inflicted imprisonment of industrial isolation will.

As I stand there, staring absently at the stirring pot on the wall, I remember Greg’s words all those years ago: No one could create peace for me. Yes, I did the tough work to heal on my own. But in the process I’d missed the finer point. An insular life is just another wall. The realization rushes over me: There can be no peace without community. Real community – people to count on, and who could count on me.

At the exact time that our society embraces shaming, blaming, judgment, and rejection, it also holds acceptance and belonging as immensely important. In other words, it's never been more impossible to 'fit in,' yet 'fitting in' has never been more important and valued

Being alone comes from separating our Self from others. It’s not about taking alone time in order to recharge. It’s the difference between “I’m alone” vs “I need some time alone”. Introverts can take alone time in a crowded bookstore full of strangers. Being alone comes from a state of emotional separation. It’s that wall we place between us and the external. We can do this while having the physical presence of another person or having people in our lives. People who have many friends can still feel alone. People who feel the most alone consistently hold attitudes and take actions that separate themselves, exclude themselves and hold themselves incomparable to others.

Because knowledge is only a cage if you dwell in isolation.

Before I spoke with people, I did not think of all these things because there was no one to bother to think them for. Now things just come out of my mouth which are true.

Being in a relationship should not feel like being in prison.

Being connected to everything has disconnected us from ourselves and the preciousness of this present moment.

Belonging is important for our growth to independence; even further, it is important for our growth to inner freedom and maturity. It is only through belonging that we can break out of the shell of individualism and self-centredness that both protects and isolates us.

Better, I thought, not to touch at all than to touch and bring hurt upon myself and others. Better to do nothing than to make a move and have it be the wrong one. But even deciding to not touch or to be nothing is a decision, Vanyel, and by deciding not to touch, so as to avoid hurt, I then hurt those who tried to touch me.

Biographer diagnoses reaction to restriction as a tell of true character. Some use even prison as a time of reflection and planning. Others, like Churchill, quickly chafe at missing interaction and opportunity.

But how much love, oh, Lord, how much love I experienced at times in those dreams of mine, in those “escapes into everything beautiful and sublime.” Even though it was fantastic love, even though it was never directed at anything human, there was still so much love that afterward, in reality, I no longer felt any impulse to direct it: that would have been an unnecessary luxury.

By being within ourselves in isolation, through contemplation and meditation we find that which is quintessential for our progress – peace. If you’ve trouble with isolation, it’s obvious that you have a trouble with yourself. Somewhere, deep within you’re not at peace and, worse, maybe even at war with yourself.

But today the united city has ceased to exist; there is no more communion of ideas. The town is a chance agglomeration of people who do not know one another, who have no common interest, save that of enriching themselves at the expense of one another.

Caught in your youniverse again? Try reaching out to the one besides you!

Camus had said in his 'Carnets' that the lives of others appear always, from the outside, to have a completion our own dismally lacks. Only when we understand this as a projection - that our lives, too, are unclosed and contingent - do we approach maturity. Alice felt immature. She felt that she was a spy in the cold.

Cath wasn't trying to make new friends here. In some cases, she was actively trying not to make friends, though she usually stopped short of being rude.

Chronic illness is hard. Pain is hard. Isolation is hard. The financial cost is hard. Grieving is hard and necessary and sometimes takes far longer than we ever imagined.

DID patients often feel very isolated/lonely, in the sense that they believe they are the only one in the universe who is “different” from others and that they do not understand themselves... DePrince et al found that alienation was the only cognitive appraisal variable to differentiate DID from PTSD. While the groups had similar appraisals of shame, betrayal, self-blame, anger, and fear, the DID participants had higher appraisal of themselves as experiencing alienation. This construct is associated with feeling alone, disconnected, and different.

Creosote made Mandy think of the thrill of rushing through a garden sprinkler as a kid, of playing washer toss in the backyard, of spending nights in the neighbors’ huge in-ground swimming pool when she was twelve, throwing glow sticks in the turquoise water during Canada Day block parties. She thought of Jud for a moment, how he’d loved doing all those things when he was a kid, but how, as he got older, it was all about popularity, sports, a life of illusion… and without warning, a totally different kind of memory filled her mind – the dull feeling of her head hitting the concrete walls near the wood shop at her old high school, the sounds of kids laughing, the sharp smell of sawdust, the buzzing of electric sanders nearby, the sound of Jud laughing while he beat her up… without realizing it, she’d started crying noiselessly.

D'en haut et de loin, c'est vrai que ce n'est qu'une poussière ici mais cette poussière existe, elle est quelque chose. Quelque chose avec son envers et son endroit, son soleil et son ombre, sa vérité et son mensonge. Les vies sur cette terre valent autant que les vies sur les autres terres, n'est-ce pas ?

Doing the things you hate is living in a world of sin. Hell is staying in the place Jesus saved you from. That is, to live on your own, without God.

Everything pains me. The merest trifle rouses a sense of abandonment. I'm impatient with other people, their will to live, their universe. Attracted by a decision to withdraw from everyone [no longer bearing the world of Y].

During several centuries Clochemerle, far from the cities and trade routes, had lived in stillness and isolation. But now, at last, the clamour of the great world was crossing the invisible barrier, bringing doubts, temptations, and discontents.

Energetically speaking, antimatter is the mirror image of matter, so the two instantly cancel each other out if they come in contact. Keeping antimatter isolated from matter is a challenge, of course, because everything on earth is made of matter. The samples have to be stored without ever touching anything at all—even air.

Enjoy the contented silence.

Every person who was a genius, a mental giant, or a great contributor to the human race watered the seeds of his greatness from the well of isolation, until the seed became a plant, and then finally, a formidable tree.

For a moment of nearly five seconds Nemed had wanted to correct, to interject with the boasting recitation of a child who has just learned something interesting about the subject at hand and wants to amaze the adults; he had wanted to tell Emer that the Inrisus were not magical or truly evil, and that their medicine was amazing. The tablet suggested that the Inrisus were entirely made of tumor cells; long ago, blue historians believed, the Inrisus had conquered cancer and found a way to separate its resilience to radiation and chemical attack from its malignancy, producing cells both immortal and functional. Their brains and hearts and other parts would keep showing up on medical scans, like blotches in a smoker’s lungs. Carcinogens simply made an Inrisus pregnant. But then Nemed realized that Emer was wearing beaver hide, that no part of his costume even had a zipper; he might not even know what cancer was. He wouldn’t know that it could be treated with radiation or chemicals; he wouldn’t appreciate the Inrisus and their ability to turn cancer into eternal life. He would probably call it necromancy, or a form of vampirism, stealing the life of an unborn infant because that was supposed to be the only way to live forever in the old stories of the Folk. I think less of him, Nemed realized. Him, and the others.

Few of us have a healthy sense of boundaries. We either have rigid boundaries (“No one is ever going to get close to me”) or weak boundaries (“I’ll be anything anyone wants me to be”). Rigid boundaries lead to distance and isolation; weak boundaries, to over-dependency and sometimes, further abuse. The ideal is to develop flexible boundaries, boundaries which can vary depending on the circumstances.

Find a part of yourself hidden in the twilight.

God had said to listen to what five people tell you and don’t hold on to your own opinion. The person who holds on to his opinion is isolated. If you insist upon it, it will harm you as well as others. This true-false is a relative truth; it is a mundane [worldly] truth. One should not insist upon it.

For some reason, I am certain that there is something I'm missing, something vital. Perhaps this is just more self-deception, yet another attempt to prove to myself that I'm not worthless.

Generations can follow this destiny, can stay close to it or depart from it, having thus the capability of giving to their nation a maximum of life and honor or a maximum of dishonor and shame. Sometimes only isolated individuals, abandoned by their generation, can reach this destiny. In that moment, they are the people, they speak in its name. All the millions of dead and of the martyrs of the past are with them, as well as the nation's life of tomorrow.