Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration.
Academic disciplines are subject to being overtaken by attacks of "knowingness"- a state of mind and soul that prevents shudders of awe and makes one immune to enthusiasm.
Familiarity with any great thing removes our awe of it. The great general is only terrible to the enemy; the great poet is frequently scolded by his wife; the children of the great statesman clamber about his knees with perfect trust and impunity; the great actor who is called before the curtain by admiring audiences is often waylaid at the stage door by his creditors.
To cease to admire is a proof of deterioration.
At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.
Familiarity with any great thing removes our awe of it.
I used to wonder what it would be like to see my name on a billboard. I couldn't even imagine something like that. Then you see it, and, well, it just makes billboards not as special as they used to be. It's weird.
A man may have spent his life among the great ones of the earth, who to him have been merely boring relatives or tedious acquaintances because a familiarity engendered in the cradle had stripped them of all glamour in his eyes.
