Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes

Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.

Loneliness is such an omnipotent and painful threat to many persons that they have little conception of the positive values of solitude and even, at times, are frightened at the prospect of being alone.

No man is an island, as they say. No. I've tried it. I've gone on retreats at various times in my life for three or four or five days. I was desperate to get out of there and talk to somebody. But I fly fish a lot, and I can only do that really by myself. I find I'm never lonesome when I'm on a river, far from it, but it's a lonely practice.

Isolation must precede true society.

Solitude is pleasant. Loneliness is not.

Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone.

Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.

So it is that Lonely Places attract as many lonely people as they produce, and the loneliness we see in them is partly in ourselves.

A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our only way of self-identifiction, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.

It was not often that she was alone like this and she did not like it. When she was alone she had to think and, these days, thoughts were not so pleasant.

Even though I get a lot done with my solitude, and I make the best use of it possible, I always think solitude is an interlude in a period of time, which is populated by others.

People are lonely. The network is seductive. But if we are always on, we may deny ourselves the rewards of solitude.

No one can be happy in eternal solitude.

People who grow bored in their own company seem to me in danger.

Of all the conditions we experience, solitude is perhaps the most misunderstood.

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community... Let him who is not in community beware of being alone... Each by itself has profound perils and pitfalls. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and the one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation and despair.

No man is an island, but some of us are long peninsulas.

Alone, lonely people talk to themselves. In company, they often continue.

I don't doubt that a man can live perfectly well on his own, but I'm convinced that he begins to die as soon as he closes the door of his house behind him.

Being alone can be good. It's easy to find peace alone. But sometimes, being alone is a king of death.

Nothing is more dangerous than solitude.

There is nothing worse than solitude. Solitude can help a man realize himself; but it destroys a woman

The problem with the loneliness I suffer is that the company of others has never been a cure for it.

Being alone is very difficult.

The time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself.