Set aside days to spend alone with God to seek his face and to imagine that face shining with joy as it looks at you. As the ancient Jewish benediction puts it: The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you [look right at you] And give you peace. (NUM. 6:24—26)

The life alienated from God collapses when deprived of its support from the sin-laden world. But the life in tune with God is actually nurtured by time spent alone.

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is time alone with God.

Because I cannot work except in solitude, it is necessary that I live my work and that is impossible except in solitude.

Anger is frustration at the fact that we are not God, and do not have control over reality.

Let tomorrow come tomorrow. Not by your will is the house carried through the night. Order is only the possibility of rest.

I knew a man who, in the age of chain-saws, went right on cutting his wood with a handsaw and an axe. He was a healthier and a saner man than I am. I shall let his memory trouble my thoughts.

I know for a while again the health of self-forgetfulness. Sabbaths 2000 V

It is possible, as I have learned again and again, to be in one's place, in such company, wild or domestic, and with such pleasure, that one cannot think of another place that one would prefer to be—or of another place at all. One does not miss or regret the past, or fear or long for the future. Being there is simply all, and is enough. Such times give one the chief standard and the chief reason for one's work.

Make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.

Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up from the pages of books and from your own heart. Be still and listen to the voices that belong to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields. There are songs and sayings that belong to this place, by which it speaks for itself and no other.