It is negligent in ordinary things, because they are beneath it, and have nothing in them to stir it up: if, however, it do turn its attention to them, it fertilizes them, aggrandizes them, and gives them a new and unexpected appearance, that had escaped vulgar eyes."
"Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I"
Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
Clemens, writing a full account to Dr. Brown of the watch, says: And if any scoffer shall say, "behold this thing is out of character," there is an inscription within which will silence him; for it will teach him that this wearer aggrandizes the watch, not the watch the wearer.
"Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens"
Albert Bigelow Paine Last Updated: February 20, 2009
The Dilecta, whom he had asked to pass her frank opinion on it, did not hesitate to tell him some hard truths: Goethe and Byron, she said, have admirably painted the desires of a superior mind; when reading them, one aggrandizes them by all the space they have perceived; one admires the scope of their view; one would fain give them one's soul to help theirs to cover the distance that separates them from the goal they aspire to reach.
"Balzac"
Frederick Lawton