Hannah Arendt — Quote from The Life of the Mind
“Solitude is that human situation in which I keep myself company. Loneliness comes about when I am alone without being able to split up into the two-in-one.”
The Life of the Mind (1978)
Concepts: loneliness, authenticity, meaning
Resonant Quotes
- “Loneliness is such an omnipotent and painful threat to many persons that they...” — Rollo May, Man's Search for Himself Both quotes make the identical philosophical distinction between solitude as creative self-relation and loneliness as...
- “The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identic...” — Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom Arendt's inability to be 'two-in-one' in loneliness is precisely the self-loss Fromm describes when the individual be...
- “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.” — Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own Woolf's permission to simply be oneself and Arendt's solitude as self-companionship both find in aloneness not depriv...
- “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death Kierkegaard's despair as failing to be oneself and Arendt's loneliness as losing the capacity for inner dialogue both...
- “Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous...” — Thomas Mann, Death in Venice Mann's acknowledgment of solitude's creative potential directly builds on Arendt's distinction, suggesting that her "...
- “The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quie...” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death Kierkegaard's concern about losing oneself unnoticed directly illuminates Arendt's loneliness—when the "two-in-one" c...
- “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus, Return to Tipasa Camus's 'invincible summer' within mirrors Arendt's 'two-in-one' structure of consciousness, both describing an inter...
- “The human dilemma is that which arises out of a man's capacity to experience ...” — Rollo May, The Courage to Create Arendt's 'two-in-one' structure of solitude directly exemplifies May's subject-object duality as the defining feature...