“First keep yourself in peace, and then will you be able to be a peacemaker towards others. A peaceable man does more good than a well-learned. A passionate man turns even good into evil and easily believes evil; a good, peaceable man converts all things into good. He who dwells in peace is suspicious of none, but he who is discontented and restless is tossed with many suspicions, and is neither quiet himself nor suffers others to be quiet. He often says what he ought not to say, and omits what it were more expedient for him to do. He considers to what duties others are bound and neglects those to which he is bound himself. Therefore be zealous first over yourself and then may you righteously be zealous concerning your neighbor.”

— Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation