Society, in the aggregate, is no fool. It is astonishing what an amount of "eccentricity" it will stand from anybody who takes the bull by the horns,… - Dinah Craik

Do your neighbour good by all means in your power, moral as well as physical — by kindness, by patience, by unflinching resistance against every outward evil — by the silent preaching of your own contrary life. But if the only good you can do him is by talking at him, or about him — nay, even to him, if it be in a self-satisfied, super-virtuous style — such as I earnestly hope the present writer is not doing — you had much better leave him alone.

Those whose own light is quenched are often the light-bringers.

And all day long, so close and near, As in a mystic dream I hear
Their gentle accents kind and dear — The old familiar voices. They have no sound that I can reach — But silence sweeter is than speech;