“I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from the rest of mankind as if I were a different kind of being.

“Some men have perhaps become hermits with the thought that sanctity involved some kind of escape from other men. But the only justification for a life of deliberate solitude is the conviction that it will help you to love not only God but also other men. Otherwise, if you go into the desert merely to get away from crowds of people you dislike, you will not find peace or solitude either; you will only isolate yourself with a tribe of devils.

“Go into the desert not to escape other men but in order to find them in God.”

Merton, Thomas. Seeds of Contemplation. (NY: Dell, 1949) pages 35-36