Literary notes about isolation (AI summary)
Writers and thinkers use isolation as a multifaceted concept that captures both internal and external separations. In narrative literature, isolation can embody personal emotion and alienation—a character may accept an "isolation of hatred" without directing that hatred outward ([1]), or feel a profound sense of loneliness that colors their very existence ([2]). In contrast, philosophical and sociological texts explore isolation as both a consequence and a cause of social and cultural division, arguing that detachment can lead to prejudice and even hinder collective progress ([3], [4]). Moreover, some authors see isolation as a paradoxical source of creativity and spiritual elevation, suggesting that solitude can sometimes cultivate originality and deeper understanding of self ([5], [6]).
- And I accept this isolation of hatred, without hating any one myself.
— from Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life's shut gate.
— from The Story of My Life by Helen Keller - The isolation of one group of ideas implies the suppression of other groups which are inconsistent with them or hinder the indicated action.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - Isolation is at once a cause and an effect of race prejudice.
— from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park - But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson - It seems to me that the imagination spreads, or should spread, a solitude around it, and works best in silence and in isolation.
— from Intentions by Oscar Wilde
