“Breakthroughs seem to happen with stunning regularity in the shower or on a long hike. Where don’t they happen? Shouting to be heard in a bar. Three hours into a television binge. Nobody realizes just how much they love someone while they’re booking back-to back-to-back meetings. If solitude is the school of genius, as the historian Edward Gibbon put it, then the crowded, busy world is the purgatory of the idiot.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 215)
“We can’t be afraid of silence, as it has much to teach us. Seek it. The ticking of the hands of your watch is telling you how time is passing away, never to return. Listen to it.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 62)
“We often seem to value activity above all else, but like all beings we need to rest and recuperate. I suspect the widespread occurrence of depression in our culture is linked to our refusal to allow ourselves quiet time. Feeling the need to remain constantly busy – mentally or physically – in socially productive activity can prevent us from turning inward to simply be with ourselves. Such inward turning requires time and might lower productivity and social standing. It is not that all activity is bad, but many of us are far out of balance and our activity does not come from a place of stillness and wisdom.” ~ Robert Kull, Solitude