Chapter 184

On the Impulse Toward Solitude and Silence

The impulse toward solitude and silence, and even the yearnings you experience, are not of good quality. Therefore it is better to drive them away and in their place to produce or call forth in your soul a desire for labor—overexertion of yourself. You sometimes have solitude—and that is enough. At all other times, strive to retire into your heart and there to establish your consciousness before God’s face—which is what it means to walk before God.

(Letter 198. Volume 1, p. 248)