Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Humans struggle to tolerate being completely alone.
In plain terms
No one can handle total solitude.
What can you take from it?
Connection is essential.

Where it applies

  • loneliness
  • retreats
  • personal growth

Putting it to work

  • seek community
  • manage isolation

Questions to consider

  • Can you be alone?
  • Do you need others?

Another view

Some people thrive in solitude.

More from Andre Malraux

  1. The human mind invents its Puss-in-Boots and its coaches that change into pumpkins at midnight because neither the believer nor the atheist is completely satis…

    Permalink to quote #2
  2. Our civilization : is not devaluing its awareness of the unknowable; nor is it deifying it. It is the first civilization that has severed it from religion and …

    Permalink to quote #3
  3. If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?

    Permalink to quote #4

Related quotes

  1. The kind of relatedness to the world may be noble or trivial, but even being related to the basest kind of pattern is immensely preferable to being alone.

    Erich FrommErich Fromm quote #10
  2. They were walking side by side, but each was alone.

    Simone De BeauvoirSimone De Beauvoir quote #22
  3. But let me get to the point, let's roll another joint. And turn the radio loud, I'm too alone to be proud. You don't know how it feels, you don't know how it f…

    Tom PettyTom Petty quote #53