It’s very old, but Crowley’s essay on solitude is still worth reading:

The First Minister of State has not so much business in public as a wise man has in private; if the one have little leisure to be alone, the other has less leisure to be in company; the one has but part of the affairs of one nation, the other all the works of God and nature under his consideration.

This is a great observation for the Selfie Society:

It is very fantastical and contradictory in human nature, that men should love themselves above all the rest of the world, and yet never endure to be with themselves. When they are in love with a mistress, all other persons are importunate and burdensome to them. “Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens,” They would live and die with her alone.

And yet our dear self is so wearisome to us that we can scarcely support its conversation for an hour together.

It is a deplorable condition this, and drives a man some times to pitiful shifts in seeking how to avoid himself.