“If failure or disgrace arrives, if one suddenly finds that the faces of men show coldness or contempt instead of the kindliness and deference that he is used to, he will perceive from the shock, the fear, the sense of being outcast and helpless, that he was living in the minds of others without knowing it, just as we daily walk the solid ground without thinking how it bears us up.”

Source: Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902, p. 207

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Charles Cooley 17
American sociologist 1864–1929

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