When he is in the room with other persons, speech stops, as if there were a corpse in the apartment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838 journal, about Jones Very

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. – Henry David Thoreau, “Solitude,” Walden, 1854 #infj

He dare not come in company, for here he should be misused, disgraced, overshoot himself in gesture or speeches or be sick; he thinks everyman observes him. – Richard Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy

Troubles are a lot like people — they grow bigger if you nurse them. – Author Unknown