"And let’s not confuse shyness with modesty or humility. Charles Darwin, who was very interested in shyness, correctly diagnosed it as a form of “self-attention” — a preoccupation with self. How do I fit in here? What do they think of me? It’s not always virtuous to sit on one’s personality and refuse to share it. On Easter Sunday, indeed, it might not be out of order to use a line or two from the New Testament: “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house."

— Shyness - The Boston Globe (via lukescommonplacebook)