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Virtue and Vice
The Whole Truth
1,441. Bankruptcy; Fraud; Lying
"The commercial world is very frequently put into confusion by
the bankruptcy of merchants, that assumed the splendour of wealth
only to obtain the privilege of trading with the stock of other
men, and of contracting debts which nothing but lucky casualties
could enable them to pay; till after having supported their
appearance a while by tumultuary magnificence of boundless
traffic, they sink at once, and drag down into poverty those whom
their equipages had induced to trust them."
Johnson: Rambler #189 (January 7, 1752)
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