Europe is so well gardened that it resembles a work of art, a scientific theory, a neat metaphysical system. Man has re-created Europe in his own ima… - Aldous Huxley

That's why," he said speaking with averted face, "I wanted to do something first. I mean, to show I was worthy of you. Not that I could ever really be that. But at any rate to show I wasn't absolutely un-worthy. I wanted to do something.

The Quaestor turned back the pages until he found himself among the Pensées. “We are not satisfied,” he read, “with the life we have in ourselves and our own being; we want to live an imaginary life in other people’s idea of us. Hence all our efforts are directed to seeming what we are not. We labor incessantly to preserve and embellish this imaginary being, and neglect that which is really ours.” The Quaestor put down the book, ... and ruefully reflected that all his own troubles had arisen from this desire to seem what in fact he was not. To seem a man of action, when in fact he was a contemplative; to seem a politician, when nature had made him an introspective psychologist; to seem a wit, which God had intended him for a sage.

Things somehow seem more real and vivid when one can apply somebody else's ready-made phrase about them (...) you bring them out triumphantly, and feel you've clinched the argument with the mere magical sound of them. That's what comes of the higher education.