Samuel Smiles：Thrift, Excerpt 496

Everybody can call to mind hundreds of cases of men--"respectable men"--who, from one extravagance have gone on to another--wantonly squandering wealth which was not theirs--in order to keep up a worldly reputation, and cut a figure before their admiring fellows;--all ending in a sudden smash, a frightful downfall, an utter bankruptcy--to the ruin, perhaps, of thousands. They have finished up with paying a respectable dividend of sixpence in the pound! Indeed it is not too much to say, that five-sixths of the fraud and swindling that disgrace commercial transactions, have had their origin in the diseased morality of "keeping up appearances."

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14418
Locator：Excerpt 496 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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