It is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius. Napoleon said of Corneille, "Were he living I would make him a king;" but he did not read him. He read Racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of Racine.
Johann Wolfgang von GoetheNothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe