Quote image editor
“For a moment, he seemed to be falling into an abyss, on the verge of an unprecedented inner collapse. All his life he had been persuaded that what a man appeared to be was more important than what he was. This was the principle, on which he had based his whole existence, both his outward career and his secret thoughts. It was not what one admitted to oneself that mattered, but what one expressed in public; not the money one actually possessed, but the money one spent when others were there to see one spend it. The ideals a man carried in his hearth were of no account compared with those he acknowledged to the world. That had been Pierre´s credo.” — Lion Feuchtwanger
For a moment, he seemed to be falling into an abyss, on the verge of an unprecedented inner collapse. All his life he had been persuaded that what a man appeared to be was more important than what he was. This was the principle, on which he had based his whole existence, both his outward career and his secret thoughts. It was not what one admitted to oneself that mattered, but what one expressed in public; not the money one actually possessed, but the money one spent when others were there to see one spend it. The ideals a man carried in his hearth were of no account compared with those he acknowledged to the world. That had been Pierre´s credo.