Retreat into yourself, but first of all make yourself ready to receive yourself there. If you do not know how to govern yourself, it would be madness to entrust yourself to yourself. There are ways of failing in solitude as in society.
-Stephen Bachelor, The Art of Solitude
Aurelius said the same thing almost 2,000 years ago:
Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, seashores, and mountains; and you too are wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the common sort of man, for it is in your power, whenever you shall choose, to retire into yourself.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 180 A. D.