Interpersonal Relationships

"He who converses little with men is rarely a misanthrope. Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not at all philosophy, which produces hatred of mankind. A misanthrope who retires from the world loses his misanthropy in solitude."

"In an era of catastrophe and crisis, the continuation of the human species in a viable or desirable form, is obviously contingent and not a given or necessary good. But considered from the standpoint of animals and the earth, the demise of humanity would be the best imaginable event possible, and the sooner the better. The extinction of Homo sapiens would remove the malignancy ravaging the planet, destroy a parasite consuming its host, shut down the killing machines, and allow the earth to regenerate while permitting new species to evolve."

"Some people think that friendliness is a sign of weakness, when in reality it is a sign of strength."

"It's foolish for society to impose the restriction of one man to the married woman. I'm not advocating sexual promiscuity but I think it's possible for a woman to have many kinds of [sexual] relationships with many men and that shouldn't affect the status of the marriage."

"My husband was not faithful. He thought monogamy was a type of wood. I'm like, "Honey, no — monogamy's when you just sleep with your wife." He's like, "No,— that's monotony.""

"Monogamy among animals is a matter of biology. So is monogamy among human beings. But in the human case, monogamy is more. It is also a matter of psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, law, ethics, theology, literature, history, philosophy, and most of the remaining humanities and social sciences as well."

"I don't think it's possible to be in love with two people. I think you can love two people - but being in love is a one-on-one personal feeling."

"It has been said that people of the modern world suffer a great sadness, a "species loneliness"—estrangement from the rest of Creation. We have built this isolation with our fear, with our arrogance, and with our homes brightly lit against the night."

"We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies — all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes."

"The Savage interrupted him. "But isn't it natural to feel there's a God?" "You might as well ask if it's natural to do up one's trousers with zippers," said the Controller sarcastically. "You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons–that's philosophy. People believe in God because they've been conditioned to. "But all the same," insisted the Savage, "it is natural to believe in God when you're alone–quite alone, in the night, thinking about death …" "But people never are alone now," said Mustapha Mond. "We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them ever to have it.""

"The lonelier you are, the more you pull away, until humans seem an alien race, with customs and a language you can't begin to understand."

"It is loneliness that makes the loudest noise. This is as true of men as of dogs."

"I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me."

"What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?"

"Loneliness / Got a mind of its own / The more people around / The more you feel alone"

"The remedy for loneliness is human fellowship, the warmth of real, live, flesh-and-blood companions and loved-ones; not prating in a vacuum to an imaginary friend for whose existence there is no vestige of serious evidence. Even an AI robot is better than that. At least ChatGPT exists, really talks back at you, will actually hold a friendly conversation. But talk to the imaginary friend which is God (Allah, Virgin Mary, Lord Krishna, Thor, Zeus, Mithras, name yours) and the only reply you’ll get is conjured within your own imagination. You’ll be talking to yourself, which is really rather sad, and hardly an antidote to loneliness."

"Who knows what true happiness is? Not the conventional word but the naked terror. To the lonely themselves, it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion."

"It's not that I hate people, I just feel better when they're not around."

"Loneliness, her arch enemy, never seemed content."

"Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One's relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain."

"There walked a lonely man, silent, mute, the only man Not knowing how, not knowing why was he the sole survivor Why should he be alive, breathing still while others died And the only question, why was he the sole survivor? Sole survivor, cursed with second sight Haunted saviour, cried into the night."

"My people were once around me like the sands of the shore—many—many. They have all passed away. They have died like the grass. They have gone to the mountains. I do not complain; the antelope falls with the arrow. I had a son. I loved him. When the palefaces came he went away. I do not know where he is. I am a Christian Indian; I am all that is left of my people. I am alone."

"The loneliest moment in life is when you have just experienced the ultimate, and it has let you down."

"Such a lonely day / And it's mine / The most loneliest day of my life."

"We suffer a lot in our society from loneliness. So much of our life is an attempt to not be lonely: 'Let's talk to each other; let's do things together so we won't be lonely.' And yet inevitably, we are really alone in these human forms. We can pretend; we can entertain each other; but that's about the best we can do. When it comes to the actual experience of life, we're very much alone; and to expect anyone else to take away our loneliness is asking too much."

"Never does the soul feel so far from human life as when a man finds himself alone in the vistas of the moon, either in the streets of a sleeping city, the avenues of the woods, or by the border of the sea. Earth, swayed perhaps by her powerful satellite, withdraws her sympathy from him, and he wanders in a white void, wondering if he was born to be thus annulled."

"I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."

"From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me?"

"Well I'm the only one here."

"Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, cars, sidewalks, stores. Everywhere. There's no escape. I'm God's lonely man."

"A man with no friends, only live for revenge Live his life off the henge, cut, through a thousand men Blade swing with the force of a cyclone Cut crystal and bone, pistol and chrome Stand in my path, you're a dead man I cut the whole world in half for the Number One headband Quest of a lonely soul, on a lonely road"

"Whatever is in the heavens and the earth declares the glory of Allah, and He is the Mighty, the Wise. His is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth. He gives life and causes death; and He is Possessor of power over all things. He is the First and the Last and the Manifest and the Hidden, and He is Knower of all things. He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six periods, and He is established on the Throne of Power. He knows that which goes down into the earth and that which comes forth out of it, and that which comes down from heaven and that which goes up to it. And He is with you wherever you are. And Allah is Seer of what you do. His is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth; and to Allah are (all) affairs returned. He causes the night to pass into the day, and causes the day to pass into the night. And He is Knower of what is in the hearts."

"The road kept coming, and continued going somewhere alone."

"Sometimes I feel Like I don't have a partner Sometimes I feel Like my only friend Is the city I live in The city of angels Lonely as I am Together we cry ... It's hard to believe That there's nobody out there It's hard to believe That I'm all alone At least I have her love The city, she loves me Lonely as I am Together we cry."

"Insults have broken my heart and left me weak, I looked for sympathy but there was none; I found no one to comfort me."

"Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone."

"Men who have a tempestuous inner life and do not seek to give vent to it by talking or writing are simply men who have no tempestuous inner life. Give company to a lonely man and he will talk more than anyone."

"It's pointless to cry. One is born and dies alone."

"Life is very long when you're lonely."

"All the lonely people, where do they all come from?"

"Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible."

"He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone."

"Sometimes I think I have felt everything I’m ever gonna feel. And from here on out, I’m not gonna feel anything new. Just lesser versions of what I’ve already felt."

"They're sharing a drink they call loneliness But it's better than drinking alone."

"There is a key trait in people who do polyamory well, and it's this: They are good at regulating their strong emotions. By that I mean, when something emotionally intense is happening to you, either good or bad, you're able to see it as part of a larger whole and keep it in perspective."

"In my experience and observation, the following factors most positively influence the odds for [poly relationship] success: 1. General attitude of goodwill and a generosity of spirit 2. Willingness to be honest, especially when the news is likely to hurt 3. Independent spirit 4. Strong personal desire for a poly life 5. Reasonably good emotional intelligence and self-esteem 6. Reading poly literature and discussing it with partners"

"Repeatedly, research on CNM shows that couples with differing sexual interests report being better off when they have multiple sexual partners. “In a relationship often there is a discrepancy between both partners’ interests,” says Muise. “However, people with multiple partnerships might be more fulfilled overall. If you have the interest in being sexual with other people it can be healthy to explore that.”"

"No act of possession can be exercised on a free being; it is an unjust to own a wife monogamously as it is to own slaves. All men are born free, all are equal before the law; we must never lose sight of these principles. Hence, no sex is granted the legitimate right to seize the other sex exclusively, and never can any sex or any class possess the other arbitrarily."

"I believe that trust is more important than monogamy."

"What the psychological profiles of CNM people might suggest is that they have emotional needs that cannot be satisfied by one person. “People in poly relationships might have higher needs in general,” says Balzarini. “We find monogamous people are on an even keel in terms of their needs for nurturance and eroticism. But poly people have high highs and low lows. They might be people who need both things simultaneously and it is hard to experience those things with only one partner. A primary partner who is nurturing is unlikely to also be exciting in an erotic way.” That said, there is very little in the way of a profile that you can build about CNM people, according to Moors. She says that there is no correlation between age, income, location, education, race, ethnicity, religion or political affiliation and CNM in her research. People who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual are more likely to be CNM, but that is the only pattern. For something that seems to span all walks of life, there is still a relentless stigma associated with non-monogamous lifestyles. Moors gives the example of how normal it is to think of platonic or familial love as endless, yet for some reason we consider romantic love finite. “We already know how to have close loving relationships with multiple people,” she says. “But we are expected to believe that romantic love is limited? How many best mates do you have? Oh, that’s disgusting you have one too many? That would be a ridiculous thing to say.” We ask a lot from our partners. We expect them to be our life coach, best friend, confidant. “We don’t need all of those things from one person,” says Moors. Perhaps we would be better off by spreading our needs between more than one person."