Solitude is healthy for the soul. Time spent in silence gives an individual the opportuntiy to reflect on their life challenges.

Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom.

Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace

The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.

It is within silence that we truly understand the importance of silence.

The Wise Men deeply saw the true reality before them. It is in that shift in perceiving and thinking which allowed them to see what was really present, and to be changed by the experience, not changed by their expectations.

All we have is the present moment. Focus on it; don't miss an experience by living outside of the current moment.