“ One excessively great man makes all others small. Hence the regard owed to everyone else and the politeness that flatters as much those who are polite as those to whom they are polite, because that politeness makes it understood that one belongs to the court or that one is worthy of belonging to it.
The courtly air consists in putting away one’s own greatness for a borrowed greatness. ”
 Montesquieu, The Spirit of Law (1748). copy citation