“…each individual appeared satisfied to stand alone. It seemed a sign of force; yet to stand alone is quite natural when one has no passions; still easier when one has no pains.”

—  Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "…each individual appeared satisfied to stand alone. It seemed a sign of force; yet to stand alone is quite natural when…" by Henry Adams?
Henry Adams photo
Henry Adams 311
journalist, historian, academic, novelist 1838–1918

Related quotes

“When evil assembles into a group, good must duplicate their efforts; for without an equal counter force of protection, evil shall destroy those who stand alone, one at a time.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

2008

Joss Whedon photo

“In every generation there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.”

Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film

“Is pain a promise? I was schooled in pain,
And found out what I could of all desire;
I weep for what I'm like when I'm alone
In the deep center of the voice and fire.I know the motion of the deepest stone.
Each one's himself, yet each one's everyone.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

"The Sententious Man," ll. 31-36
Words for the Wind (1958)

Aldous Huxley photo

“It is natural to believe in God when you're alone-- quite alone, in the night, thinking about death.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

“The world has so many poems in it, it has never seemed to me very smart to force one more upon the world. If there isn’t one there to write, you just leave it alone.”

A.R. Ammons (1926–2001) American poet

Paris Review interview (1996)
Context: Unless I have something already moving through the mind, I don’t go to the typewriter at all. The world has so many poems in it, it has never seemed to me very smart to force one more upon the world. If there isn’t one there to write, you just leave it alone.

Jean Paul photo

“No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of nature, no longer moved and sustained by the Spirit of the universe.”

Jean Paul (1763–1825) German novelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 19.

Willa Cather photo

“The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. Each tree grows alone, murmurs alone, thinks alone. They do not intrude upon each other.”

Willa Cather book The Song of the Lark

Part IV, ch. 1
The Song of the Lark (1915)
Context: The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. Each tree grows alone, murmurs alone, thinks alone. They do not intrude upon each other. The Navajos are not much in the habit of giving or of asking help. Their language is not a communicative one, and they never attempt an interchange of personality in speech. Over their forests there is the same inexorable reserve. Each tree has its exalted power to bear.

Alice Hoffman photo

“In losing a friend, she is reminded of all she has lost and all she stands to lose again. There is nothing to be done to make it any easier.
We all grieve alone.”

Alice Hoffman (1952) Novelist, young-adult writer, children's writer

Source: Incantation

Halldór Laxness photo

“b>A man is not independent unless he has the courage to stand alone.</b”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Sjálfstætt fólk (Independent People) (1935), Book Two, Part III: Conclusion

Baruch Spinoza photo

“Bruno and Spinoza are to be entirely excepted. Each stands by himself and alone”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Arthur Schopenhauer, in The World as Will and Representation (1818; 1844), Vol. I, p. 422, n. 2
Context: [From Schopenhauer's assessments of other philosophers] Bruno and Spinoza are to be entirely excepted. Each stands by himself and alone; and they do not belong either to their age or to their part of the globe, which rewarded the one with death, and the other with persecution and ignominy. Their miserable existence and death in this Western world are like that of a tropical plant in Europe. The banks of the Ganges were their spiritual home; there, they would have led a peaceful and honoured life among men of like mind.

Related topics