#solitary

For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice. ↗

— Erwin Schrodinger

#any #becomes #community #destructive #egoism

...the natures of solitary people are apt to have more unmapped country in them than worldly folk imagine. They see and think and do things peculiar to themselves, and one may turn up buried treasure in them at any moment. ("Absolute Evil") ↗

— Julian Hawthorne

#solitude #imagination

Only boxers can understand the loneliness of tennis players - and yet boxers have their corner men and managers. Even a boxer's opponent provides a kind of companionship, someone he can grapple with and grunt at. In tennis you stand face-to-face with the enemy, trade blows with him, but never touch him or talk to him, or anyone else. The rules forbid a tennis player from even talking to his coach while on the court. People sometimes mention the track-and-field runner as a comparably lonely figure, but I have to laugh. At least the runner can feel and smell his opponents. They're inches away. In tennis you're on an island. Of all the games men and women play, tennis is the closest to solitary confinement.... ↗

— Andre Agassi

#loneliness #opponents #solitary-confinement #tennis #men

The most solitary I ever felt was when I was living in New York. I used to live in Enrico Caruso's old apartment, and I had a special staircase that took me up to the roof. There was nobody up there. ↗

— Robert Duvall

#ever #felt #had #i #live

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking. ↗

— Jessamyn West

#complete #family #friends #must #natural

We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life. ↗

— Tennessee Williams

#inside #life #our #own #sentenced

It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me. ↗

— Jodie Foster

#always #been #being #being alone #combination

A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which are at once more intense and less articulate than those of a gregarious man. ↗

— Thomas Mann

#experiences #feels #gregarious #intense #less

We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict. ↗

— Jim Morrison

#else #fear #feelings #inflict #less

The temple of Ceres should be in a solitary spot out of the city, to which the public are not necessarily led but for the purpose of sacrificing to her. ↗

— Marcus V. Pollio

#her #led #necessarily #out #public