Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and solitude. The causes of loneliness are varied, but it can be affected by social, mental, emotional, and spiritual factors. It is a natural phenomenon, since humans are social creatures by nature. Loneliness has also been described as social pain — a psychological mechanism meant to alert an individual of isolation and motivate him/her to seek social connections.
Read more about Loneliness: Common Causes, Distinction From Solitude, As Human Condition, Rates of Loneliness, In Modern Society, Effects, Treatments and Prevention
Famous quotes containing the word loneliness:
“... I was crying partly because I felt that this was expected of me, partly from genuine repentance, but partly also because of a deeper grief which is peculiar to childhood and not easy to convey: a sense of desolate loneliness and helplessness, of being locked up not only in a hostile world but in a world of good and evil where the rules were such that it was actually not possible for me to keep them.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“And I alone of all mankind
Were left in loneliness behind.”
—William Barnes (1801–1886)
“Man’s loneliness is but his fear of life.”
—Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953)