"A certain brother went to Abbot Moses in Scete, and asked him for a good word. And then the elder said to him: 'Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.' " Here is something essential, inescapable for any of us. Unless we learn to live with ourselves, how can we live with others? Unless we know ourselves, accept ourselves with honesty and forgiveness, how can we possibly know or accept other people?
— Esther de Waal, The Celtic Way of Prayer