All who aim at elevation are so anxious to escape the reproach of being weak and dry that they are carried, as by some strange law of nature, into th… - Pseudo-Longinus

Sublimity is the echo of greatness of spirit.

φύσει γὰρ ἅπαντες οἱ μεγέθους ἐφιέμενοι, φεύγοντες ἀσθενείας καὶ ξηρότητος κατάγνωσιν, οὐκ οἶδ᾿ ὅπως ἐπὶ τοῦθ᾿ ὑποφέρονται, πειθόμενοι τῷ ῾μεγάλων ἀπολισθαίνειν ὅμως εὐγενὲς ἁμάρτημα.᾿

There are, one may say, some five most productive sources of the sublime in literature, the common groundwork, as it were, of all five being competence in speaking, without which nothing can be done. The first and most powerful is the power of grand conceptions…and the second is the inspiration of vehement emotion. The other three come partly from art, namely the proper construction of figures – these being of course of two kinds, figures of thought and figures of speech – and, over and above these, nobility of language…The fifth cause of grandeur, which gives form to all those already mentioned, is dignified and elegant word-arrangement.