In love as in life, expectation avails us but little; through loving we learn to love; and it is the so-called disillusions of pettier love that will, the most simply and faithfully, feed the immovable flame of the mightier love that shall come, it may be, to illumine the rest of our life.
"Wisdom and Destiny"
Maurice Maeterlinck
It is an operation so absorbing that it often weakens those pettier talents which make what we call the clever man.
"Put Yourself in His Place"
Charles Reade
The pettier Upper Self withdrew ashamed, passing over the reins of conduct into those mighty, shadowy hands.
"A Prisoner in Fairyland"
Algernon Blackwood