The capacity to be alone is a necessary balance to the press of social life, and the healing power of solitude is central to our well-being. It promotes self-understanding and contact with those inner depths of being that often elude us when meeting the demands of daily living. Above all, solitude provides the opportunity to be alone with God and opens us to the workings of the Spirit.
Remember, it is a still voice that speaks to us in this day, and that it is not to be heard in the noises and hurries of the mind. Jesus loved and chose solitudes, often going to mountains, to gardens, and seasides to avoid crowds and hurries to show his disciples it was good to be solitary and sit loose to the world.
– William Penn,
Preface to The Journal of George Fox, 1694