August 25, 2010

Adelbert von Chamisso

"My inward emotion suggested to me, that even as in this world gold weighs down both merit and virtue, so a shadow might possibly be more valuable than gold itself; and that, as I had sacrificed my riches to my integrity on other occasions, so now I had given up my shadow for mere wealth; and what ought, what could become of me?"

Adelbert von Chamisso (Ante 1787 - Berlijn 1838), Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte (1813)