Estrangement Quotes

It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.

~ John Joseph Powell

I understood the life around me better, not from love, which everybody acknowledges to be a great teacher, but from estrangement, to which nobody has attributed the power of reinforcing insight

~ Nirad C. Chaudhuri

Immediately after a divorce or a breakup, your mind whispers that there are plenty more fish in the sea, while your heart shouts that there is only one whoever-you-just-divorced-or-broke-up-with.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

... He who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new... partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event.

~ Niccolò Machiavelli

Our incredible bewilderment (wilderness separation) blinds us from seeing that our many personal and global problems primarily result from our assault of and separation from the natural creation process within and around us. Our estrangement from nature leaves us wanting,and when we want there is never enough. Our insatiable wanting is called greed. It is a major source of our destructive dependencies and violence.

~ Michael J. Cohen

indelible waitingl'art poetique..I will wait for the night to chase me...I sit on a rock and watch children playingin the park belowThey don't see meOr know my thoughtsOr that you haven't calledBut I forgive them their indifference todayAbove me a crow cawsPerhaps he smells the crumbs on my dressOr my angerBut he flits away over the treesProbably has a homeProbably has a wifeProbably knew to callThe children leaveThe coffee in my can turns coldThe wind nips at meSome street lights flicker onBut I won't moveNot yetI will wait for the night to chase meBack where I came fromUp the empty streetTo a quiet house

~ Adelheid Manefeldt

She'd brought everybody apart, tearing the whole family that was once a compact groundwork into a whole new design, ugly and non-structured.

~ Diyar Harraz

The question of the stranger in a society which estranges everybody from it--while forcing everybody to assimilate their own alienation--takes cover under dubious and sinister masks.

~ Norman Manea

I had come from wondrous lands, from landscapes more enchanting than life, but only to myself did I ever mention these lands, and I said nothing about the landscapes which I saw in dreams. My feet stepped like theirs over the floorboards and the flagstones, but my heart was far away, even if it beat close by, false master of an estranged and exiled body.

~ Fernando Pessoa

What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfortOf being strangers, at least to ourselves.

~ Mark Strand

Five years of someone's life is too much to lose over a throwaway comment.

~ Clare Mackintosh

exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.

~ Edward Said

A friendship has but one chief adversary and that is envy. It is sired by resentment with the potential consequence of unresolved estrangement. She looked at the woman in conflict and said, Do not envy her but imagine what it took for her to have what you resent her for. Would you want to embark upon her journey instead of your own to procure it? You notice her abundance but overlook her losses; do not envy her because she would rather have your friendship than your envy. The woman looked at her and nodded in accord, And how do you do that? she asked. The woman sighed in reflective thought. By changing the way you think.

~ Donna Lynn Hope

The landscape of human emotion is ominously changing. The visceral sensation of loneliness and solitude is no longer as palpable and intellectually profound as it was a couple of decades ago because technology has already relieved us, as much as possible, from the burden of any emotional and existential isolation. The intense feeling of being nostalgic or being alone, for instance, is receding from the human emotion because we can now communicate with live video and send messages through any social media to a distant friend or loved one. Consequently, the exponential progress of technology is altering the phenomenological experience of human sensation, robbing us of our ability to get in touch with our humanity and reflect upon the triumphs and madness of our techno-society. Ironically, in our obstinate desire to humanize robots and Artificial Intelligence, our individual existence is, in turn, being digitized and robotized by our own technological inventions. Horribilis! (Danny Castillones Sillada, The Alienation of Solitude and Sorrow)

~ Danny Castillones Sillada