Gurdjieff used to say, sometimes to very prominent people, famous in some way or other — great authors, painters, poets, politicians, the people who dominate this world, the great egoists…. He used to say to these people a very significant thing — remember it. Suddenly he would say to them, “You have a very good facade.”
Now to say to a politician, to a president of a country or to a prime minister or to a king, “You have a very good facade,” is to invite trouble. And Gurdjieff lived his whole life in trouble. But there is no other way.