Nothing is more difficult than prayer. In all other tasks of spiritual life, however exacting, one can sometimes rest, but there is no rest in prayer, up to the end of one's life.
~ Simon Weil
An early century desert monk once shared an image:
"When the door of the steam bath is continually left open, the heat inside rapidly escapes through it; likewise the soul, in its desire to say many things, dissipates its remembrance of God through the door of speech, even though everything it says is good ..."
Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.