A humble man is never pleased to see gatherings, confused crowds, tumult, shouts and cries, opulence, adornment, and luxury, the cause of insobriety

but above all he chooses to be by himself and to collect himself within himself | being alone in stillness, separated from all creation | and taking heed to himself in a silent place. | Insignificance, absence of possessions, want and poverty are in every wise beloved by him. | He is not engaged in manifold and fluctuating affairs | but at all times he desires to be unoccupied and free | of the cares and the confusion of the things of this world | that he may keep his thoughts from going outside himself. | Homily 71, p. 496