Example is always more efficacious than precept.

No one can practice the precepts perfectly, including the Buddha... Boiled vegetables contain dead bacteria. We cannot practice the First Precept or any of the precepts perfectly. But because of the real danger in our society--alcoholism has destroyed so many families and has brought about much unhappiness--we have to do something. We have to live in a way that will eradicate that kind of damage. That is why even if you can be very healthy with one glass of wine every week, I still urge you with all my strength to abandon that glass of wine (76).

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: / For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.

Lauderdale Courts was placed on the National Historic Register because it's such a great example of public housing - not because Elvis lived there, ... But when his fans rose up to protest [the demolition], it gave the project cachet.

MR. BROWNE'S SEPTEMBER PRECEPT:

WHEN GIVEN THE CHOICE BETWEEN BEING
RIGHT OR BEING KIND, CHOOSE KIND.

Where one person shapes their life by precept and example, there are a thousand who have shaped it by impulse and circumstances.