John Chrysostom

Since, you see, this is a particular object of interest for the rich—flattery in the marketplace, attention from the populace, public commendation, tributes teeming with hypocrisy, cutting a fine figure at spectacles, applauded at banquets and in the courts, being on everybody's lips, thought to be conscientious—note how this in turn he prunes away in time. "In their lifetime," he says, note; that is, this publicity and being spoken well of lasts for this life, but it disappears along with everything else, being impermanent and perishable. Even when it comes from a display put on by the flatterers, after his death it is reversed when the mask of fear is stripped away.